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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY
MEMORIAL
the class of 1901
founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER
•
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J'ity. What one of us but can call to mind some relative, more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rai)acil yV He ever st^ems to have gone fortli like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every family. Shall he now be arrested in his desolating career? In that arrest, all can give aid that will and who sliall be excused that can, and will not? Far around as human brealli has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our fiiends prostrate in the cliains of moral death. To all the living everywhere, we cry, "Come sound the moral trump, that these may rise and stand up an exceeding great "Come from the four winds, O breath and breathe upon these slain army."
;
'
—
;
—
!
may live." If the relative gruDdeur of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world shall ever have seen. Of our political revolution of 76 we are all justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom fur exc< ediiig that of any other nations of the In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as earth. In it was the germ which has to the capability of man to govern himself.
that Ihfy
vegitated,
and
all
still
is
to
grow and exjiand
into the universal liberty of
mankind.
evils too.
these glorious results, past, present, and to come, it had its breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire and long, long Mfler, the orphans' cry :ind tbe widows' wail, continued to break the sad silence that ensued. These Mere the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought. Turn now, to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger n bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed By it, more of want supplied, ntore diseas*' healed, more sorrow assuaged. it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded in feeleven the dram-maker and dram-seller will ing, none injured in interest have glided into other occupations so g-adually, as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of And what a noble ally this, to the cause of political freedom, gladne«=s. with such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and n, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect Happy day, when all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all liberty. matter subjected; mind all conquering mind shall live and move, the monHail fall of fury! Reign arch of the world. Glorious consunnmit ion
But, with
It
;
—
;
(
!
.reason,
all hail
!
And when! the victory shall be complete when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth how proud the title of that Land, which may trulv claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of noth those revoluHow nob!}' distinguished that tions, that shall h:;ve ended in that victory. people, who shall have planted, and nurtured to maturity, both the political and moral freedom of their species.
—
—
J
This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth long since miuhtiest in tlip cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none at;empt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on.
—
—
This address was
ingtonian Society,
26, 1842,
first
printed by order of the Wash"
m
the
Saiigamo Journal," March
and
is
re-printed through the kindness of the
Springfield Journal
Company, for the benefit of the Springfield Keform Club, and is on sale by tliem at 10c.
$5.(X)
a copy, $1.00 per dozen, or
per hundred, prepaid,
suit.
by mail or express, in quantities to
Address
Sec'y.
^HN
F
~
UNN
^^^^ ^' ^^'^^'
OBSEQUIES
OF
5
ABEAHAM
IN
LINCOLN,
Newark, N.
J.,
April 19, 1865.
ORATION
BY
FREDERICK
T.
FRELINGHUYSEN, ESQ.
NEWARK,
18C5.
N. J.:
PRINTED AT THE DAILY ADVERTISER OFFICE.
6
Newakk, N.
IIoN. F. T.
J,,
April 22d, 1865.
Fkelinguuysen—
Deau
citizens of
Sir
:
Newark, assembled on the 19th instant
United States,
In pursuance of a resolution adopted by the to commemorate the obsequies of the
late President of the
tion a copy of the eloquent
we respectfully ask that you will furnish for publicaand appropriate address delivered by you on that occasion.
We trust that you will kindly
comply with this request, in order that the procccdiDgs of an occasion so marked and solemn may be put in form for preservation.
In behalf of th« Committee of Arrangements,
wc
arc
Very
A. Q.
truly yours,
MARCUS
KEASBEY,
Secretanj.
L.
WARD,
Chairman.
Newark,
Gentlemen
:
April 24th, 1S65.
cated by yon,
In compliance with the request of our fellow-citizens, so kindly commuuitransmit for publication my hastily prepared address on the occasion of the funeral obsequies Of our lamented President.
I
Yours
truly,
FRED'K
To
Messrs. :Marcu8 L.
T.
FRELINCnUYSEN.
Ward, Chairman, and A.
Q. Keasbey, Sec'y.
(
rRELIMIMRY AIUIANG EMliNTS.
-•On Monday,
make
K\)v\\ 17, a public
meeting was held at Library Hall, to
of
arrangcnicnts
for
obsequies in commemoration
Abkaiiam
Lincoln, of an assassin took
iiEAi),
late President of the
2)lace
United States, whose death by the hand on Saturday, April 15. William A. Wiiite-
Esq.,
was appointed Chairman of the meeting, and John Y.
full
Foster, Esq., Secretary.
to
The following gentlemen were appointed a committee with make arrangements for suitable ceremonies
:
power
Marcus
L. "Ward, Silas Merchant,
,
Daniel Haines, Orson Wilson,
B. Prieth,
Albert Beach, James L. Hays, Daniel Lauck,
A. Q. Keasbey,
Francis Mackin,
George
A. Halsey,
Moses Big:plow, John H. Kase,
William A. Whitehead, William E. Sturges,
Francis Brill,
Theodore Runyoi^, Thomas T. Kinney,
Dr. F.
Dr.
L[iL,
John Y. Foster, John C. Littell, Thomas R. Williams,
James M. Smith, David Anderson, James Ro^ve.
to prepare
CHRiSTornER Wiedenmeyer,
J.
A. Cross,
Wm.
B. Guild, Jr.,
The following gentlemen were appointed a committee
resolutions to be read at the celeljration
:
Rev. E. M. Levy,
C. L. C. Gifford,
*
Dr.
S.
H. Pennington,
a. Q. Keasbey,
Rev. George H. Doane.
The Committee of Arrangements announced on the following day that they had determined upon a funeral procession, and an oration, to
take place on Wednesday, April 10, shnultancously with the funeral services at Washington, and requested the city authorities, the various
public bodies and associations, and the citizens generally, to
j^articijiatc,
6
Federal salute to be fired at sunrise, and throughout the city.
all
business to be suspended
On "Wednesday, Ai)ril 19, the day devoted to the celebration of the obsequies in pursuance of the foregoing arrangements, the whole city was literally in mourning. Business was every^'here suspended, and a
deep solemnity and stillness rested upon the crowded streets. The tokens of sorrow were univei*sally displayed upon public and private
buildings.
Upon
the tolling of the bells, at noon, the i)eople assembled in their
various churches, in accordance with the Governor's proclamation, where
religious services suitable to the
solemn occasion were held and approcorner of Broad and Market
priate addresses made.
At 2
streets,
P. M., the procession
moved from the
through Market to Washington, down "Wasliiugton to Broad, up
Broad
street,
Washington Place, through Wasliington Place to Washington uj) Washington street to Broad, down Broad to Centre street, and
to
]SIilitarj'
thence to
Park.
:
The following was the order of the procession
Detachment of Police. Major William W. Morris, Grand Marshal and Aids.
Military Escort. First National Guard and Rifle Corps. Officers of the Army and Na\y.
Invalid Soldiers.
Officers
and Soldiers of the Army out of Band.
•
service.
Pall Bearers.
Marcus
L.
Ward,
WiLLiAJi A. Whitehead, James M. Qtxikbt, William A. Myer, Thomas B. Peddie, Beach Vastjerpool, Joseph Ward,
H «
fj
PaU Bearers. Samuel P. Smith, John A. Boppe,
Dr. FRrooLiN III,
^ „
rj
m
CoRXELrcs Walsh, Moses T. Baker, Frederick Wuesthoff.
Veteran Reserve Corps as Guard of Honor.
Orator. Clergy.
Government and State Officers. Mayor and Common Council.
Police.
Band.
^
Fire Department. Masonic Order, under William D. Kinney, Marshal. Odd Fellows, under Amos H. Searfoss, Marshal. William S. Whitehead, Grand Master State of New Jersey. Newark Mutual Aid Association. Protestant Association. German Organizations—Philip Somer, Marshal. Social Turners— William Knecht. Aurora, Eintracht, Liederkranz, Arion, Concordia and Teutonia Singing Societies—J. P. Huber. Fickler Lodge, Benevolent Society— G. Benkert.
Humbolt "
"
"
—J. Gemeinder.
8
Maehlenberg and Robert Blum Lodges, Benevolent Societies—C. Miller. " " " Chas. Fargel. Washington, Lafayette and Jefferson No Surrender Lodge, Benevolent Society Chas. Seifert. Mandas Stamm, Red Men Society—John Lingsman. Mamakaus Stamm, Red Men Society— F. Hause. Ratuca and Union Stamms, Red Men Societies G. Stetenfeld. Miamies, Robert Blum Association and Benevolent Society No. 1—J. Beisinger. Mendelssohn and Teutonia Benevolent Societies I. Lehman. Shoemakers' and Bakers' Associations, Friendship Club and Newark Benevolent Association— Schaefer.
—
—
—
—
Clinton Township Newark Young Men's
L.
& J.
Club.
Literary Society.
Trade Associations.
Hibernian Provident Benevolent Society. Shamrock Benevolent Society. Erina Benevolent Society. Laborers' Benevolent Society. Emerald Benevolent Society. St. James' Benevolent Society, St. Joseph's Benevolent Society. St. Peter's Benevolent Society.
St. Patrick's
Temperance
Society.
Young Men's Roman
Second Division of
Catholic Association.
St. Patrick's
Temperance
Society.
Citizens generally. The Marshals.
Bells were tolled
and minute
i^uns fired durinf]^
the march of the
procession,
which occupied an hour in passing a given point, and arrived at the Park at 4jr P. M. At that place an immense assemblage had gathered. ]SIarcus L. Ward, Esq., took the chair, and the exercises
were opened with a dirge by Dodworth's Band, followed by a hymn from the German Singing Society, which was sung vrith much feeling
and expression.
The Rev. Mr. Levy, Chairman of
the Committee on
:
Resolutions, then ofiered the following, which were adopted The citizens of Newark, assembled en masse beneath the shadow of a
would express
in befitting
great sorrow,
words their sentiments and feelings in view of the recent striking down of the honored head of the Nation by the hands of murderous violence, Jiesolved, That we feel the utter inadequacy of language to measure our astonishment and horror at the daring enormity of the crime committed. Resolved, That in the presence of this awful dispensation of Providence, it becomes us, the citizens of Newark here assembled, in common with our fellow countrymen throughout the Union, to bow with humble submission under the rod that has smitten us, and with penitence and confession of our national and personal sins to implore God's mercy upon us and our afflicted people. Resolved, That the virtues of Abraham Lrs'coLN speak tmmpet-tongned against the execrable deed that has cut short his useful life and deprived the Republic of his invalu. able services that now more than ever the insulted majesty of the Nation stands in urgent need of vindication and that while we would deprecate all vindictive excess, we are nevertheless of the opinion that the laws of God and the instincts of outraged humanity justify and demand that at least the chief plotters and abettors of a rebellion which has
—
;
deluged the land with blood, should not be allowed to go unpunished. Resolved, That we recognize in the brutal murder of the President, and the attempted assaseination of the Secretary of State, lying as he was on a sick bed and rendered defenceless by wounds, the same fiendish spirit engendered by slavery, which, years ago, shocked the nation with its barbarous violence, and at last has filled the land with lamentation and bitter sorrow, making it the imperative duty of the Government never to cea^d the struggle in which we are engaged, tintil this pestilent cause of all our troubles is forever eradicated from our soil.
8
we will retain in cherished remembrance the virtues of that iland whose compatriots, under God, we owe the foundation of the free institutions we enjoy, our hearts will not consent to withhold an equal place in their afl'ectionate and grateful remembrance, from the martyred patriot, whose life has just been sacrificed for their maintenance assured that while time lasts and a reverence for virtue and loyalty remains, the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will stand together in emblazoned characters on history's brightest page, the one as the Father,
Besolved, That, while lustrious man to whom,
;
the other as the Saviour of his country. Besolved, That we extend to the afflicted family of our late President our sincere sympa^ thy, assuring them that their affliction and sorrow arc not theirs alone, but are shared by the entire Nation, and that we commend them to the protection and loving regard of the God of all grace and comfort. Resolved, That cur sympathies are due and are hereby tendered to the honored Secretary of State, himself the purposed victim of foul conspiracy and that we regard it a cause for special and devout thanksgiving that the transcendent ability, which has been so skillfully employed in averting threatened foreign complications with our domestic troubles, is still saved to our afflicted country in this hour of her severest trial. Resolved, That we tender to the distinguished citizen called of God in a manner so signal and solemn, to assume the duties of the Chief Executive office, the expression of our confidence in his patriotism and earnest purpose to administer, in dependence on Divine assistance, the aflTairs of this great people, with the assurance of our earnest support in his efforts to uphold the Government and maintain its authority over our entire National territory. Resolved, That over the prostrate body of our murdered President it is eminently fit and
;
proper that every good citizen, every patriot, every man who Anshes to be thought an upholder of order, and a free Government, should now, ignoring party, swear fresh allegiance to the National cause, and new devotion to the work of saving, under God, this great Republic from dismemberment and overthrow.
Frederick
Another dirge by the band was followed by the Oration of Hon. T. Frelinghuysen.
Rally Round the Flag" were band, after which, on motion, a resolution was adopted returning thanks to Mr. Frelinghuysen for his able oration, and requesting a copy of the same for publication. In conclusion,
The "Star-Spangled Banner" and
"
then given by the
the vast multitude was led by Alderman James L. Hays in singing the " Praise God from whom all blessings flow." grand old Doxology
—
9
ORATION.
-•Fellow-Citizens
gratulations at the
their
:
The songs of Victory
speedy advent of Peace
;
tlie
patriot's con-
;
the bells pealing
anthems of praise to God, are suddenly hushed. The proud huzzah is turned to lamentation, and the land is
distress.
shrouded with the signals of
A grief such
as can
only come to the great heart of a Nation has fallen upon us. The kind, the unpretending, the patient, the laborious, the
brave, the wise, the great and
good
Abraham Lincoln
is
dead
!
The
Nation's heart should " melt and be poured out
like water."
bow, Oh God, beneath thy rod. After being called to the Chief-Magistracy of this Nation by
!
We
the overwhelming voice of the people ; after having borne, for four years, a weight of toil and care and responsibility,
such
after having brought the nation through a complication of difficulties which the best men among us at times have believed would engulph
as,
perhaps,
no other man has borne
;
us in ruin
;
when he was
just introducing the Nation to the
halcyon days of peace;
wai5
when, by
acts
of sublime magna-
nimity, appealing to the better instincts of
man's nature, he
people
;
endeavoring to join the
all
hands of
this estranged
when, to
appearances, his intimate and severely acof the conflicting interests, motives and quired knowledge passions of the crisis, was essential to the welfare of the Re-
human
public;
when the thanks of a rescued people were just being poured upon him when his wisdom and his patriotism had
;
taken from party
spirit its bitterness,
and
all
were uniting in
2
10
testimony to his greatness and his goodness it is, at this point of time, at this juncture of events, in the inscrutable providence of God, the fearful tidings reach us that Abraham
—
Lincoln
is
dead
!
That mind,
practical
in all its
comprehensive originality, stored with
now left the transitory wisdom, scenes of time That heart which was moved to active symfor all in the wide world who were afilicted, downpathy
to us invaluable, has
!
That hand trodden or oppressed, will never beat again! which, while it swayed the sceptre of a great Nation, none of any state, condition or color were too poor or too degraded to
grasp,
is
now
"
It is
cold and
stiff
and motionless
!
Ah
!
afflicted
country, go and mourn.
For the grave of
manliuess to be heart-broken here, earth's best nobleness is watered by the tear."
Go deck
the second Father of his Country
with mourning wreath your Nation's ensign, for is no more.
When
hereafter selfish ambition shall distract
and divide
the Cabinet counsel of the Nation,
you can no longer comhereafter an uninformed
posedly say,
Lincoln is
there
!
When
and inflammatory press shall assail valuable civil or military officers, you can no longer quietly lay aside the journal, with
the satisfactory consolation,
after complications
Lincoln
is
there
!
When
here-
and
difficulties
arise
with foreign nations,
knowing the
leader,
sagacity and peace-loving disposition of your
!
When
you can no longer exultingly say, Lincoln is there hereafter the true friends of the country, with earnest-
ness and talent, shall advocate two diverse and opposite plans for the restoration of the Nation, one crying for justice and
for vengeance,
and the other counselling pardon and forbear-
ance, you can no longer lay your head gently on its pillow, under the conviction that Lincoln is there No, he is not there He has gone Gone to the reward of those who, in
! ! !
imitation of our great Exemplar, forget themselves for the welfare of others.
Did I
say,
that
the Nation
mourned because Abraham
11
LusTCOLN was dead?
in the
ties
10
Had he
died
I told but half the truth.
course of nature, surrounded
by
all
the tender assidui-
of affection, and had he left this anxious world of trouble for his home above, leaving us his parting counsel and benediction,
we would have sorrowed
for
him most deeply; but the
heart of this afflicted people has vastly more than that sorrow It is anguished and torn by the conflicting emotions to bear.
of sorrow and bereavement on the one hand, and indignation and desire for justice on the other.
In Abraham Lincoln was not only centered the affections of the people, but he impersonated the majestic dignity of this great Christian Nation to protect and vindicate which dignity
—
all
men
of
all parties
would be ready,
if
needs be, again to
drench this land in blood and tears and ready to give up life the Chief Magistrate, who thus impersonated and property
;
the Nation's dignity, is not only dead, but
is
foully murdered.
Let the vile miscreant
who
did the deed die as he deserves.
But ah
!
our President had other murderers than that aban-
doned man.
He was murdered by
the
two nefarious Powers
had bravely fought and bravely vanquished, and which were at that moment expiring Iluman Slavery and Eebellion against Freedom.
which, in God's strength he
—
agonizing event is a small leaden missile and a few grains of powder but the real, the true, the responsible cause of this atrocity, is the two malign
this
;
The proximate cause of
agencies which in these later years have been holding their carnival of crime and cruelty and causing the land to wreak
with blood.
This diabolical consummation
is
the legitimate
result of the sj^irit they
It
have been inculcating. matters not whether the counsel of the assassin's accom''
plice to
wait until
Kichmond could be heard from
;"
whether
the fact that the day selected for the deed w\ns that on which the Nation's banner was re-instated on Sumter whether the
;
months ago public advertisement offered a reward for a man to assassinate the President whether the fact that a scheme did exist to seize and caiTy him off beyond the enefact that
;
12
my's
of
Cabinet— prove
lines
;
whether the
fact that this plot
included the whole
Eichmond
crime to
or do not prove that the itinerant government Those who would- trace instigated the deed.
this
its
proper source and then profit by their conclu-
sion,
foul
must accept the truth that the murderers are the two One of w^hich, for generations, powers I have named.
others
has grown rich in luxurious indolence by the sweat of brows, has revelled in the degradation of those who were without the ability to resist, has severed the tenligatures
derest
of
the
human
heart
by
tearing
husband
wife, children, and has made the lash often death the sanction by which to enforce its tyranny and
from
and mother from
;
it
has withheld from God's immortal creatures the blessed
;
privilege of reading His gospel of salvation
class
has reduced a
well called "poor whites" to a condition little better than the slave, and has robbed those who would be true to
their country of the benefits of our priceless institutions.
is
It
the same vile power which at one time
by
its
insidious
blandishments has seduced Northern freemen into an abject servility to its will, and at another time has bullied the counsels
of this Nation into a shape to
its
it
agreeable.
It is the
same
that has rendered
votaries arrogant
and inhuman, the same
that struck
dissolution,
Sumner down, and which now, in the agonies of its has dealt a blow upon him, who, as God's instru(as
ment, I believe, has vanquished it. The other murderer is the offspring,
that I have just named.
death
is
of
sin,)
of
It is that foul spirit
which rebelled
without cause, and without the assignment of any cause, against the fairest and best government of the world which has laid
;
in
many an unknown grave,
cold and stark and dead, hundreds
of thousands of the best youth of the Nation. It is that spirit which has filled our land with widows and orphans that has
;
murdered by starvation tens of thousands of our brave
soldiers, fighting to
maintain
civil liberty for the
world
;
the
same that prompted commissioned bandit raiders to rob our banks and murder unarmed and quiet citizens the same that
;
13
htos
11
and children —
thrown from the track
all
trains of cars, the inmates
—women
;
unguarded and unconscious of danger
the
same
that has striven, with the incendiary's torch, to reduce to
a seething, burning mass the multitudinous throng attendant on our places of public amusement, and to send anguish to
every hamlet in the land by the simultaneous destruction of
most of the crowded hotels in yonder metropolis. It is the same spirit that while this horrid deed was being done, in the
person of that ruflian leaped on the sick bed of our honored Secretary of State, and with the assassin's blade sought to
extinguish a heroism which every other expedient had failed
to silence.
Slavery and Rebellion, are the murderers of our Let the vile instrument who, over the Chief Magistrate.
These
!
shoulders of a doting wife, assassinated the benefactor of his
race, die!
But come, you
noble, just
and true men of
all parties
with
me, to the altars of your country and there record it, that these foul murderers of our race, as well as of our President, shall
no longer have a foot-place in free America. Those influences which transmute the sober-minded American citizen into frenzied fiends
—burning
;
with a murderous
to assassinate
fanaticism, ready, reckless of danger
and death,
whoever
is
pointed out for vengeance
stiletto
those influences which
'
render the
and the
pistol,
rather than argument and the
peaceful ballot, the arbiters of the destinies of the Nation, must be torn up, root and branch, and burned in the hot fire of a
holy indignation, or we are undone forever. For more than four years yes, ever since
;
Abraham
Lin-
coln had the hardihood,
as a free
American
citizen, to accept
a nomination for the Presidency, the pampered slave aristocracy of the South have followed him with the deepest malig-
Fashion and beauty incensed that at the sacrifice of oath and country he would not do obeisance to their assumpnity.
tion,
have plied
their fascinating dalliance to insinuate the
venom
of hatred and revenge into the heart of the Southern
14
more vulgar with the rapacity of their blooddogs have hounded him they have exhausted the vocabulary
gentry, while the
;
of Billingsgate for opprobrious epithets wherewith to dishonor him; they have villified him as a drunkard, fool and tyrant.
And when
m'Sj^^
that miscreant leaped
upon the
theatrical malevolence of the pit,
stage and with the shouted " Stc semj^er tyranvile sentiment
he only condensed and echoed the
fostered.
they
have
I observe that
when
up
the rebel leader heard of
in his house at
the assassination he shut himself
Kichmond,
!
refusing to hear the details of the tragedy.
Ah
yes
;
did
conscience
tell
him
that he
concerned, had guili
first
and his co-conspirators, though not in that murder ? He is by no means the
who
wind.
is
has sown the wind and cowered before the whirlThe event which shocks the nation, is not isolated. It
its
linked to the past, and that past has
responsibility.
But come now, you who have rebelled against the Government your victim lies bleeding before you. Look at him.
;
Did he ever take one
step further in
your path than you made
necessary for the preservation of this free Government for your children and for ours ? Did he ever utter to you one
unkind word?
if
Has he done more than you would have done,
in
you have not perjury
your
soul, if you,
?
as he,
had that
constitutional oath recorded in
victim
—your eyes may now
would be more
His
!
Come, look at your themselves with vengeance glut
;
Heaven
but
it
rational, let
me
say, that
your hearts
should be clothed with sorrow, for there! there!
best friend
lies your was the rampart patient, forgiving nature, between your crime and an injured country. Think not that this Nation dies with him. No, it lives, and it will live. Hearts throb and stalwart men weep but an event which would
—
have shaken
to their centres the
monarchies of the Old World,
let
does not produce a jar to our self-adjusting Government. And me tell you, if you do not yet submit to the same laws
rejoice to obey,
which we
shall
one will
rise
up whose
little
finger
be as that man's
is
loins.
!
This blow
hard to bear
Martyr of
liberty,
great
1
"^
15
sacrifice to tliy Nation's existence, rest in
thy Western grave
!
Those of the opposing party, regretting any hasty word, not said in malice, that might have cast an insult on thy honored
name, remembering that not one rancorous expression was ever tempted from thy lips and seeing in thy death the in-
—
fernal character of the principles
life
against which your
war of
come with those who were your followers, and both will join with the down-trodden and the oppressed of this and of every land, and at thy tomb renew our devotion to the just and holy cause for which you lived and died.
was waged,
will
born in Kentucky, in 1809. He was the son of a poor man. He derives no distinction from When he ancestry, but sheds back upon it a bright lustre.
Abraham Lincoln was
was seven years old
his lather
moved
to Indiana, where, for
twelve years the son lived, aiding in the support of the family. When Abraham Lincoln was about twenty years old, his father removed to Illinois, and he remained aiding the family
until they
were
settled in their
new home.
Having learned
to
read and write during this period of his life, he studied most Ilis assiduously such elementary books as came in his way.
father's family settled,
and
he,
being destitute of pecuniary
means, hired himself out, some times as a day laborer, some times as a hand on a IMississippi flat-boat. At this period, and
in these scenes, he learned,
by impressive
lessons, the value to
each of God's creatures, of his
own
industry, his
own
muscles
And the patrimony he had. he learned too, in the integrity of his nature, to look upon the
and
capabilities, for that
was
all
self-appropriation of another's industry without compensation,
as the
meanest of
all thefts
and
robberies.
He
learned the
dignity of free human toil and that if, and not the ill-gotten gains of a pampered aristocracy, constituted the true wealth of
the Nation.
exist
poor
— created
for
among
learned that the very diversity of gifts that men in this world one being rich and another
He
—
the mutual dependance of one
man upon
an-
other;
he saw that the
man
with capital was
as dependant
on him
for his labor, as
he was upon the
man
of wealth for
16
his support;
and he saw that
this universal
dependance of
society, con-
each
member
of society on the other
members of
stituted the equality of all
their
all men, were equal, they all had equal rights, and hy dependance^ thus comprehended that great fundamental doctrine of our
men
in society
—and that as
" Government, That all men are created equal." lie learned that it was not "a glittering generality," but a great truth, These lessons affecting all the relations of men as citizens.
thus learned, helped to prepare him for his great mission. After having gathered a little means, for a short time he
followed the employment of a country merchant, and then the business of a surveyor. lie then studied law, and soon took
a prominent position at the important cases at the West.
bar
—being
employed
in
many
He was
then sent to Congress,
where he maintained a highly respectable and useful position. On his return from Congress, the question of slavery was
agitating the country.
Senator Stephen A. Douglas was a
man
of great talent and the foremost debater in the U. S. Senate and permit me to say, while he lived, he was as de;
termined and patriotic an opposer of the rebellion as any man that has survived him. Douglas and Lincoln met at the hustings to discuss the great question of slavery vast crowds
—
livered all over the land.
ability,
followed them, the electric wire carried their speeches as deThose debates were of marked
of those distinguished men ever claimed a victory, the one over the other. And the were more enlightened and educated on the subject people
and I believe that neither
from these debates than from any other source. The ability displayed and the principles enunciated by Mr. Lincoln in these debates, induced the Eepublican party, in
1860, to
election
make him
was one of
their candidate for the Presidency.
fearful interest
That
slave
and excitement.
The
section of the country
had
hitherto,
by
threats
carried almost every position they had tali:en, pointed to the magazine and to the torchj saying that if
and menaces, and they now
Abra-
ham Lincoln was
elected President, the Union, the Nation,
17 should cease to
exist.
13
this as
Many
looked upon
an
idle threat
;
others determined, that be the consequences
what they might,
they would lawfully and freely exercise the elective franchise. Tie was elected. They lighted the torch, and were preparing
Congress implored them to desist and, moved by love of country, to induce them to stay their hand, both
to
apply
it.
;
the Ilouse of Kepresentatives and Senate,
by
a two-thirds vote,
Republicans and Democrats voting together, on the 28th of
io win iz
February, 1861, passed a joint resolution, proposing the folamendment to the Constitution of the United States
:
" "
'•
No amendment
shall
be made to the Constitution which
will authorize or give to
*'
Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by
" the laws of said State."
President Lincoln, in his inaugural address, plainly expressed his approval of this amendment, and it was a measure
of conciliation in which
That then deeply sympathized. was the hour of power for the Southern malcontents. Had they then desisted, this fair land of freedom would have beI-
come a pandemonium where slavery and all the crimes of which it is the prolific mother, would have had uncontrolled But God in his infinite wisdom and dominion and sway.
mercy had
better things in store for us
;
and severe
as has
been the ordeal, this Nation, pruned from its iniquity, is yet to be the grandest and freest Christian Nation of the world.
Having escaped a
arrangements for
plot for his assassination,
by changing
his
>
travel,
and was inaugurated on the
Mr. Lincoln arrived at Washington -ith of March, 1861. And he
whom
"
"
the vile fugitive has the hardihood to call a tyrant, thus at his inauguration addressed the South ''In your hands,
:
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine^ is the my The Government wiW not momentous issue of civil war.
dissatisfied
assail you.
"
"
the aggressors.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves You have no oath registered in Heaven to
and defend
it.'
"
destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn
*
" one to
preserve, protect
3
18
" I
"
am
loth to close.
We are not
enemies, but friends
;
we
it
must
not
be enemies.
Tliougli passion
may
liave strained,
" "
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot this "grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over
"
"
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when of again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels
" our nature."
These words had hardly reached the South when, on the Abraham Lincoln i4th of April, Sumter was fired on.
sprang to his feet and called for men, and most nobly did all And from that time to the parties of the North respond.
hour of
his death
—in the
and in the trenches around the Capitol
the great interests of his country.
Cabinet of the Nation, at the front, he devoted himself to
—
Others have wavered
—
others have desponded, but he never.
And now
to-day, in
the august presence
"
say
"
:
upon which he has entered, he can truly The oath which I took before God and the Nation, I
is
have
This
tried to fulfill."
tunes of this war.
vert.
not the time or the place to follow the varying forTo one act alone of Mr. Lincoln's I ad-
For a year and a half we had been unsuccessful in quelling the rebellion. Mr. Lincoln believed it was his duty,
as Commander-in-Chief, to deprive the rebels of that
which
supported them, and on the 22d of September, 1862, he issued his proclamation that in all those States, which on the 1st of
January, 1863, were in rebellion, the slaves
should be free
Of one thing
I
!
FOREVER.
I shall
not discuss the merits of that
act.
am
certain, that
Abraham Lincoln
will never
now
recall it
Yes, a second thing I know, that on those blissful shores, and in that atmosphere of love, where all are equals and all are
free,
he does not desire to-day to
recall it
!
Yes
!
I know, the
American
people, seeing the havoc
it.
it
a third thing has wrought,
will never, never, never recall
And now Abraham
Lincoln's work
is
done.
He
has
left
19
US forever
duction to
see the full
!
14
more than
at his in-
lie has accomplished vastly
office
he modestly promised.
He
did not live to
consummation of
his labors, but
from Pisgah he
viewed the promised land.
And
to-day, we, of all political
parties, viewing the altar where he lies a sacrifice, find our hearts moved to a warmer and higher patriotism. It is a delicate duty to interpret the Providence of God.
One thing
is
certain
—God never teaches us to hate
vengeance in our own hands.
any fellow
lie teaches
creature, nor to take
us to love justice and to loathe iniquity. And I believe this Providence should teach us to hate the Kebellion and Slavery, the murderers of our President, more than ever before, and in
imitation of
*
him we lament, and
so far as
is
consistent with
desire to
the inflexible laws of justice, forgive as
we
be
for-
given.
of Mr.
I have not the time or the ability to give a correct analysis Lincoln's characteristics. He is not one of those
ephemeral characters, to which a fervid imagination might add an unreal lustre, or from which a want of appreciation might
detract.
His
life
world's history,
and character are substantial things in the upon which time, after a rigid scrutiny, will
to the
That judgment will be pass an irreversable judgment. honor of his name, and to the glory of the Nation.
But pardon a word
I
as to his characteristics.
do not believe in the truth of the maxim, " Vox 2^oj)uli\ vox Dei^^ but I do believe that no man has appended to his
name by
is
his associates in daily
life,
the prefix "honest"
who
a
not a
man
West
of sterling integrity, and he was
as
known
for years
in the
faithful
"Honest Abraham Lincoln."
He was
man.
gifted
men, fostered by our free institutions, have on the stage of public life, but in how few of them appeared has the keen and jealous vision of the people failed to dis-
Many
power?
cover ambition, the taint of sellishness, and the stooping for But Mr. Lincoln is believed by the peo])le to have
lived not for hiniseJf, but for his country,
lli^ star in
the con
20
stellations of history will
lustre.
be
known
as his^
by
its
unsullied
As
to the
a patriot,
lie
did not confine
liis efforts
to the rescue, or
the Kegrandeur of the Kepublic, and so convert even into a magnifident idol, but in the public, as did the Eomans, of his benevolence he comprehended the elevation
universality
and the happiness of all his countrymen of the master as well as of the slave, and of those of his race beyond the great
waters as well as to those
—
who
are here.
a statesman, I can only say, that I think he was more future? wise, had more foresight, more penetration into the So well than most, perhaps than any, of his cotemporaries.
As
convinced had the people become of his superior wisdom, that they rendered a cheerful acquiescence in measures, which, emanating from another, they would have looked upon with
distrust
and doubt.
heart.
is,
A word as to the qualities of his
I ever heard
The only
stricture
upon him
That
in this regard
is
that
he was too kind
and too
gone
luas
lenient.
a blessed criticism for one
who
has
dependent upon the mercy of his God. He merciful to the transgressor, but did he ever parley with
to Eternity,
the transgression?
The two
offences
he had to deal with
Let the man were Slavery and Kebellion against Freedom. in all the world who has done or suffered more for the destruction of both
become
his critic.
T cannot be.
But he
was tender-hearted, and often and often when some poor boysoldier has been tempted to desert, and the military penalty of
death has been adjudged against him, Mr. LiNCOLisr has interor posed to save his life. He may have been wrong, but right it. wrong, we all love him the better for
Of
his religious character, I can only say, that
;
he of
all
men
was no pretender he was an honest man, and being so, the are plenary evidence of spirit of his numerous proclamations Pardon the recital of an incihis humble reliance on God.
dent.
A
gentleman, as I
am
credibly informed, visited the
for seven
President, and an interview was appointed
o'clock
21
the next morning.
to the gentleman,
i^
the President's
As the business was of much importance alert, and when he reached he found it was only six o'clock. He walked
he was on the
to the rear of "the
mansion and was attracted by a voice which
he recognized as that of Mr. Linx'OLN', in a retired back room. He listened and found the President was praying to his God
for his country.
«
We
a
life
need not
this
proof
— the
man's
life,
principles and
utterances,
prove his
faitli.
And we may joyfully
believe that
life
—
excellence was but the preface to a better clothed in a righteousness not his own.
of so
much
I might detain you longer. I might point out to you wliat he accomplished for us, but I forbear. Let me oidy say lie has estcddl^Iicd it, that the will of the
:
majority, restrained oiJf/
the sovereign
by the Constitution of our
fathers, is
power of this Nation. He has cstaldlshed it, that this Government is not a confederation of petty sovereignties,
any of which may
at will dissolve the
Government, but that
We
are a great Nation, having in ourselves under God, the
life
power of
and of
self-preservation.
He has done one thing more. When the Roman master would
free a slave,
he brought
him to the Court of the Praetor Urbanus in the Forum, placed him on a stool, then gave him a whirl, and in the hearing of Be Free all the people shouted, Liber Esto! Libcr Esio ! Be Free and he became a freedman.
^^
''^
!
!
Lin'coln, as the instrument of God, has in the " Liber Esto ! IJbcr Esto .'" cadence of heavenly music shouted,
before the world in the ears of four millions of God's creatures.
Abraham
Rest
now
—thy
!
work
is
done,
thy
life's
an epoch and a
blessing.
Rest
" For thou art Freedom's now nncl Fame's " One of the few, tlic immortal namca " That were not born to die."'
22
THE REMAINS IN NEW JERSEY.
On Monday,
tlirougli
April
24tli,
the remains of the lamented President passed
Joseph Newark, accompanied by ]\rcssrs. :\rARCUS L. Ward, Frederick B. Kuhnhold, CortP. Bradley, Andrew Lemassena, LANDT Parker and Andrew Atha, of the Citizens' Committee. The
Newark Daily
"
Advertiser^ of the 24th, says
:
to morning, crowds of people began between Market and Chestnut streets, and 'father upon Raili'oad avenue, soon not only covered the entire street but all the adjoining house-tops, sheds and windows. A feeling of deep sorrow appeared to pervade the wliile the fluttering of the black trimmings from the neighentire
Shortly after 7 o'clock this
mass,
officers, clergy,
mourning badges upon the coat or mantle, and the other tokens of grief, gave an unusually sombre cast to the scene. " Common Council, city Shortly before 9 o'clock, the members of the a detachment of the Veteran Reserve Coii3S, and the city
Ijoring buildmgs, the
mourning. minute guns, and as the train with the remains passed slowly alono- the avenue, heads were uncovered and bowed with reverence,
tiring of
took possession of the Market street depot, and after removing the crowd, awaited the arrival of the train, whose approach had been announced by the arrival of the jnlot locomotive, hea^dly draped in Its appearance was heralded by the tolling of l)ells and the
police,
many persons shedding tears. " The cars remained at the depot only a few minutes and then proceeded to Jersey City, passing large numbers of citizens who had gathered at the various street crossings, and the Centre street station and
East Newark."
[From the Newark Daily Advertiser, April
"
2Gth, 1865.]
con'espondent of the Boston Advertiser^ who accomjDanied the funeral train fi-om Washington to New York, says of the scene in this
A
on Monday morning 'The incidents of the morning's journey were similar to those seen Sometimes the track was lined on both sides for miles with elsewhere. a continuous array of people. The most imjiressive scene of the whole route thus t\ir was furnished by the city of Newark, although no stop of The track runs directly through the city, any length was made there. and the space on each side of the road is very broad, and afforded ample room for spectators. It seemed as if the inhabitants of Newark had resolved to turn out en masse to pay their brief tribute of respect to the memory of the departed as his cofhn passed by. For a distance of a mile, the observer on the train could perceive only one sea of Luman beings. It was not a crowd surging with excitement or impatience like most great assemblages, but stood quiet and aj^parently subdued with grief unspeakable. Every man with hardly an exception, from one end of the town to the other, stood bareheaded while the train passed, half of the women were crying, and every face bore an expression of sincere sadness. Housetops, fences, and the very switches beside the track, were covered with men. Words can do no justice to the spectacle. We
city
:
90
become used to tliiillinL,^ scenes by the experience of our journey, but nowhere have we seen anythhig more touchiu''- than the simple unanimity witli which tlie men and women of Newark left their avocations and waited beside the track for the passage of the funeral train.'
liavc
16
"
Wc may
add
on the
train, stated to
to the above, that Governor Stone, of Iowa, who was a gentleman of this city that at no point in the
long journey had the tribute to the lamented deceased exceeded in fervor and touchiug solemnity that here displayed.''
ABRAHAM
A
LIXTOLX:
PAPER
READ liKFORK
The Royal Historical
London, ]ink
iCiii.
Socip:tv,
1881.
15V
Hon.
I'RESIDKNT OF
ISAAC
N.
ARNOLD,
lEI.l.OW
THE CHICACO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND IION.»KAKY OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, LONDON.
KKPRINTKI> FROM
Transactions of ihe Ronai. Hisiokk,
Vol.
X.
ai.
Society.
CHICAGO:
FK R C r
S
I'
K
I
N
I
I'
I
N
^^
(;
CO
M
P
AN
V
8 8
OFFICERS AND COUNCIL
MAY,
1881.
TnK Kk.hi
HoN'ORAni.K Lijkd Ai;i;RitAui
,
1.
R.S.
lli>
'I
Grace thk Dukk of Wkstminster,
K.Ci.
RicHi Hox. iHK Eart. or Roskbkrv. KiLiHT Hon. Lord de Lisle and Dudley. The Ri(;ht Hon. Lord Selborne.
'hi
John Lubbock, Bari., M.P.. D.C.L. James Hevwood, Esq., F.R.S.
(iEORGE Harrls, Esq., LL.U.,
F.I. A.
Sir
Cornelius Walford,
Esq., F.I. A.
^ unc
i
f.
GusTAVUS George Zerffi, Esq., Ph. I).. F. R..S. L., Chairman. S[r Charles Farquhar Shand, LL. I)., Vice-C/iainnan. Right Hon. Earl Ferrers. The Righi Hon. Lord Ronald Gowkr.
John H. Chapman,
Esq., M.A., F.S.A.
Hyde Clark,
Rky.
J.
J.
Esq., D.C.L.
F.G.S., F.L.S.
M. Crombie,
Baker Greene, Esq., M.B., LL.B. Henry H. Howorth, Es(j., F.S.A. Alderman Hurst.
Captain E. C. Johnson. Tito Pagliardini, Esq.
1'. K. J. Shenton, Esq. Rev. Robin.son Thornton, D.D. (Oxon).
liRYCK
McMuRDo Wright,
E.sq., F.R.Ci.S.
John Russell, Esq.
^I^ouorari) ir>ccri'tarii
^\'^r.
an& ilrcaoun'r.
Bank,
Herba(;k, Esq.,
7,
F.S.S.,
i>ondon wwC^ .Suulh-Wcstcrii
Fenchurch
Street,
London, F.C.
^iOrariait.
W.
S.
W.
\'
\ux, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. L., Societys
Rooms,
jj,
Albe-
marle Street, W.
Among
the
Honorary Fellows of the Society are the following:
Hon. (ieorge Bancroft, Washington, U.S.A. Hon. Charles H. Bell, President of the New Hampshire Historical
Society, Exeter,
New
Hampshire.
James Anthony Froude, Esq., LL.D., London.
His Excellency General Grant, Ex-President of the United
States.
Hon. Horatio Gates Jones, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The Right-Rev. Bisho]) Kip, San Francisco. Professor H. W. Longfellow, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Frederic de Peyster, Esq., President of the Hist. Soc. of
A'ery Rev. Dean Stanley, D.D., London.
New
York.
"Pownsend
A\'ard, Esq., Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.
Hon. M.
P. Wilder, Boston, Mass.,
U.S.A.
Hon. Robert
C. Winthrop, LL.D.. President of the Historical So-
ciety of Massachusetts.
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, President
Hist. Soc. of Chicago, L'.S.A.
19
PROCEEDINGS
OF
The Royal
On
Historical
Socii^tv.
the
evcniiii;"
of
tlic
i6th of June, 1881, the Society,
and a large number Rooms, Xo. 22 Albemarle
Tlie chairman, Mr.
ford, in introducing^
of in\-ited i^uests,
Street,
met
at
the Society's
London.
of Bed-
Alderman Hurst, ]{\-Ma}'or
Mr. Arnold to the Socict}- said that the
occasion was the more interesting to him from the fact that
the
first
emigrants to America were natives of his own part
of the country, l^edfordshire and the neighboring counties.
gave him great pleasure to see among them that evening a member of the Society from the distant shores of America,
It
and
in
the
all
name
of the Society he gave him hearts' welcome.
the great
They
knew and admired
man
of
whom
the}-
were about to hear, and the paper would proxe doubly interesting, coming as it did from one of his fellow-countr\'-
men and one who had known and been
duties with Lincoln.
associated
in political
Mr. Arnold
then read
the following
paper upon
Mr.
Lincoln
:
20
ABRAHAM LINXOLN.
.Mr.
PRKSIDKN
noblest
T.
LaDII.s
AM)
(
i
KN Tl.KMKN
:
Till",
inheritance
is
\vc,
Americans, deri\c from
our British ancestors threat and L^ood men
as on this.
the memor}' and exami)le of the who adorn \our history. They are as
side of the Atlantic
much appreciated and honored on our
In i;i\ing to the En<;lish-speakin^j world Washington and Lincoln we think we re]oa\', in large part, our
Their preeminence in American histor\' is and the republic, which the one foiuided imd the recognized, other preserved, has already crowned tliem as models for her
obligation.
children.
In the annals of almost e\er\' great nation
some names
appear standing out clear and prominent, names of those who have influenced or controlled the great events which
Such were Wallace and Hruce in Scotland, Alfred and the Edwards, William the Conqueror, Cromwell. Pitt, Nelson, and Wellington in ICngland. and such in a still greater degree were Washington and Lincoln.
make up
histor\'.
I
am
to
here, from near his
may,
some
in
extent, aid
\'ou
home, with the hope that 1 in forming a just and true
1
estimate of
mately,
years.
Abraham
Lincoln.
private and public
life
practised law at the administration, I was a member of Congress, seeing him ma\' hope. and conferring with him often, and, therefore,
1
We
knew him, somewhat intifor more than twent>' same bar, and tluring his
I
trust without
\anit\' that
in
I
shall
be able to contribute
something of value in America, as well
as
enabling you to judge of him. Wc you in the old world, believe that
8
it is a great blessing to have had an We believe that moral honorable and worthy ancestry. and intellectual \igor in the forefathers principle, physical are qualities likely to be manifested in the descendants. I claim Fools are not the fathers or mothers of great men. he was for Lincoln, humble as was the station to which
'•blood will tell"; that
born, and rude and rough as were his early surroundings, I mean that his father and that he had such ancestors.
mother, his grandfather and grandmother, and
back, however
still
further
were and mentally strong, vigorous men and women; physically hardy and successful pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. They were among the early settlers in Virginia, and Illinois, and knew how to take care of themKentucky, selves in the midst of difficulties and perils; how to live and succeed where the weak would perish. These ancestors of Lincoln, for several generations, kept on the ver}" on the frontier^ crest of the wave of Western settlements where the struggle for life was hard and the strong alone
humble and rugged
their condition,
—
survived.
His
grandfather,
Abraham
Lincoln, and
his
father,
Thomas, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia. About 78 1, while his father was still a lad, his grandfather's family emigrated to Kentucky, and was a contemporary with Daniel Boone, the celebrated Indian fighter and This, a then wild and wooded early hero of that State. territory, was the scene of those fierce and desperate conflicts between the settlers and the Indians which gave it the name of "The dark and bloody ground." When Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, was
1
six years old, his father
(Abraham, the grandfather of the was shot and instantly killed by an Indian. The President) boy and his father were at work in the corn-field, near their Mordecai, the elder brother of the lad, at log-cabin home. work not far away, witnessed the attack. He saw his father fall, and ran to the cabin, seized his ready-loaded rifle, and springing to the loop-hole cut through the logs, he saw the
21
Indian,
who had
and
seized the bo\',
ainiini,^
carr\-in<''
him awaw
Rais-
in[^ his rifle
at
a siher medal, conspicuous
lie
on
the breast of the Indian,
fell,
and the lad, springing to his of his mother at the cabin-door.
fearless
instantly feet, ran to the
fired.
The Indian
open arms
scenes, the
Amidst such
Lincoln famil\' naturalh' produced rude, rough, hardy, and men, familiar with wood-craft; men who could meet
the extremes of exposure and fatigue, who knew how to find food and shelter in the forest; men of great powers of endurance brave and self-reliant, true and faithful to their
—
friends, and dangerous to conceive and hands
It is a
to their enemies. to
Men
with minds
execute bold enterprises.
coln,
is
curious fact that the grandfather, Abraham Linnoted on the surveys of Daniel Boone as ha\ing
fixe
purchased, of the Gox'ernment,
hundred acres of
land.
Lincoln, the father, was also the purchaser of government land, and President Lincoln left, as a part of his
estate, a quarter-section (one
Thomas
hundred and sixty
acres),
which
he had received from the Lnited States, for services rendered in early life as a volunteer soldier in the Hlack-IIawk
Indian war.
Thus
for three generations tlie
Lincoln family
were land-owners directly from the Government. Such was the lineage and family from which President Lincoln sprung. Such was the enxironment in which his character was developed. He was born in a log-cabin, in Kentucky, on the I2th
of Februar}', 1809.
It will
aid
you
in
picturing to yourselves this \'oung
man
and
his surroundings, to
in
know
that,
from boyhood
to the
winter his head was protected from the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or prairie-wolf, and that he often wore the buckskin breeches and
age of twent\'-one,
hunting-shirt of the pioneer.
He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and Herculean strength. ILul he appeared in h^nglaiul or Norsome centuries ago, he would have been the founder mandy of some great Baronial famil\'. p(^ssibl\' of a Royal tl\'nast\'.
lO
could have wielded, with ease, the two-handed sword of Guy, the great Earl of Warwick, or the battle-axe of Rich-
He
ard of the Lion-heart.
HIS EDUCATION
AND
TKAIXINCi.
The world
is
naturally interested in
knowing what was
the education and training which fitted Lincoln for the On the extreme frongreat work which he accomplished. The was very limited. tier, the, means of book-learning the heels common free -schools, which now closely follow of the pioneer and organized civil government, and prevail all over the United States, had not then reached the Far-
West.
An
itinerant school-teacher
wandered occasionally
into a settlement,
and
opened a private school for a few months, at such Lincoln attended at different times, in all about
His mother, who was a
twelve months.
woman
of practical
good sense, of strong physical organization, of deep religious feeling, gentle and self-reliant, taught him to read and
write.
Although she died when he was only nine years old, she had already laid deep the foundations of his excellence. Perfect truthfulness and integrity, love of justice, self-control,
reverence for God, these constituted the solid basis of
his character.
These we're all implanted and carefully cultivated by his mother, and he always spoke of her with the deepest respect and the most tender affection. "All that I
am, or hope to be," said
sainted mother."
he,
when
President, "I
owe
to
my
most eager desire to learn, but there were no libraries, and few books in the back settlements in which he lived. Among the stray volumes, which he found in the possession of the illiterate families by which he was surrounded, were ^sop's fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a life of W^ashington, the poems of Burns, and the To these his reading was confined, and he read Bible. them o\'er and over again, until they became as familiar His memory was marvelous, and I almost as the alphabet.
early manifested the
He
99
1
1
nc\cr \cl nicl ihc
Aljiahani
Lincoln.
man
nun'c
faniili.ii'
with
llic
Hil^lc
than
This was apparent in after -hfc. botli fnun his C()n\c'rsati(»n and writings, as scarceU' a spcccli or state paper of his in which iUustrations and alhisions from
the I^ible can not
l^e
found.
man. he made for himself, of coarse paper, a scrap-book, into which lie copied cvcr}'thing which He found an old EngHsh gramparticularl)' j^leased him. mar, which he studied b\- liimself; and he formed, from hi^
Willie a
N'ounij
constant study o( the l^ible, that simple, plain, clear AngloHe illustrated Sax(Mi style, so effectixe with the people.
the
maxim
(w ith
that to
it
is
better to
know
thorouglilx' a few
good
he
\ari-
books than
skim o\er
\
manw
When
fifteen \ears old,
improxing ous subjects ami to j^ractise in making political and other These he made so amusing and attractix'e tliat speeches. liis father had to forbid his making -them in working-hours, for. said he, "when Abe begins to speak, all the hands flock
began
a
iew of
himself) to write
on
to hear him."
His mcmor)- was so retentix'e that he could which repeat, vcrbatiin, the sermons and political speeches he heard. Wliile his da\'s were spent in hard manual labor, and
exenings in study, he grew up strong in bodx'. healthful in mind, with no bad liabits; no stain of intemperance, proHe used neither tobacco nor fanity, or vice of anv kind.
his
intoxicating drinks, and, thus lixing. he grew to be six feet In all athletic four inches high, and a giant in strength. I he had no equal. have heard an old comrade sa\', sports
"he could strike the hardest blow with the woodman's axe. and the maul of the rail-splitter, jumj) higher, run faster than any of his fellows, and there were none, far or near, who could la\- him on his back." Kind and cordial, he early developed st) much wit and humor, such a capacity for narratixe and storx-telling. that he xvas exerxxvhere a most welcome guest.
12
A
LAND SURVEYOR.
Like Washington, he became, in early hfe, a good pracha\e, in my library, the identical book surveyor, and from which, at eighteen }'ears of age, he studied the art of B\' his skill and accuracy, and by the neatness surveying.
tical
I
of his work, he was sought after by the settlers, to survey and fix the boundaries of their farms, and in this way, in
In 1837, he earned a support while he studied law. he was admitted and licensed, by the Supreme self-taught,
part,
Court of
Illinois, to
practise law.
A LAWYER.
It
is
difficult
for
difficult
you began lo practise
for
to
to describe, and, perhaps, more conceive the contrast when Lincoln
me
between the forms of the administration of justice in Westminster Hall, and in the rude log I recall today what was said a few court-houses of Illinois.
law,
years ago by an Illinois friend,
time,
Westminster Abbey, and
when we visited, for the first as we passed into Westmin-
ster Hall.
in the
"This," he exclaimed, "this is the grandest forum Here Fox, Burke, and Sheridan hurled their world.
Here Brougham denunciations against Warren Hastings. defended Queen Caroline. And this," he went on to repeat,
in
the words of
Macauley (words
as familiar in
America
as
here),
"This is the great hall of William which has resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirt}' kings, and which has witnessed the trials of Bacon and Somers and Strafford and Charles the First." "And yet," I replied, "I have seen justice administered on the
Rufus, the hall
prairies of Illinois without simple to rudeness, and yet,
at the bar,
pomp
when Lincoln and Douglas
or ceremony, everything led
I have seen justice administered by judges as aided by advocates as eloquent, if not as learned, as pure, any who ever presided, or plead, in Westminster Hall." The common-law of England (said to be the perfection
of
human wisdom) was administered
in
both forums, and
the decisions of each tribunal were cited as authority in the
23
13
other;
both ilhistrating that reverence
is
for.
and obedience
to, law, wliich
the glor\- of the ICnghsh-speakinf^ race.
Lincoln was a great law)'er.
He
sought to convince
rather b\' the application of principle than b\' the citation On the w hole, die was stronger w ith lluof authorities.
jur\'
than with
in
the court.
1
e\er been,
coln.
iVnierica. a greater or
jur\-,
do not know that there has more successful advoside,
cate before a
on the right
than
Abraham
Lin-
marvelous power of conciliating and imA stranger entering the pressing everyone in his favor. court, ignorant of the case, and listening a few moments to Lincoln, would fmd himself inx'oluntarih' on his side and
a
He had
w ishing him success. He was a quick and accurate reader of character, and seemed to comprehend, almost intuiti\el\',
the peculiarities of those with whom he came in contact. His manner was so candid, his methods so direct, so fair, he seemed so anxious that truth and justice should prex'ail, that
everyone w ished him success. He excelled in the statement Howe\'er complicated, he would disentangle it, of his case. and present the important and turning-point in a wa\' so
clear that
all
could
understand.
Indeed,
hi^
statement
the
often alone
won
his cause,
rendering argument unnecessarw
is
The judges would
His
ful
often stop him b}' saying, "If that case, brother Lincoln, we w ill hear the other side."
abilit\in
clearly the important facts,
examining a witness, in bringing out was only surpassed h\- his skil-
cross-examinations.
tell
He
to
the truth,
when he meant
could often compel a witness He could make a to lie.
jur\'
On the generalls' weep, at liis pleasure. and when fraud «>r injustice were to be exposed, right side, or innocence \indicated, he rose to the highest range of But he must ha\-e faith in eloquence, and was irresistible. His wit and humor, his cause to bring out his full strength.
laugh, and
his quaint
and homelx'
illu-^tralions, his
inexhaustible stores
of anectlote, alwa}'s to the point, added greatl\- tn his power
as a jur\-adv()cate.
He
ne\er
misstated
evidence or
it
misrepresented
squarel}-.
his
opponent's case, but
met
fairl}'
and
14
He
May,
remained
in
i860, for the presidency. leading cases in both the federal
acti\e practice until his nomination, in He was employed in the
and
state courts,
and had
a large clientelage, not onl)' in Illinois, but was frequently called, on special retainers, to other states.
AN ILLINOIS POLrriCL\N.
B\' his
life,
eloquence and popularity, he became,
earl\- in
the leader of the old
as
member
party, in Illinois. He served of the State Legislature, was the candidate of
Whig
his party for speaker, presidential elector,
senator,
and United States and was a member of the lower house of Congress.
SLAVERY.
the independence of the American republic was established, African slavery was tolerated as a local and
When
temporary
institution.
It
was
in
conflict
with the moral
sense, the religious con\ictions of the people, and the political principles on which the government was founded.
But having been
ized, aggressive
tolerated,
it
power, and, later, the government. Conscious of
it
soon became an organbecame the master of
inherent ^\'eakness,
its
it
its
demanded and obtained
sion.
First, the
additional territory for
expan-
great Louisiana Territory was purchased,
then Florida, and then Texas. By the repeal, in 1854, of the prohibition of slavery north of the Hne of ;^6'', 30' of latitude (known in America
Compromise"), the slavery question became the leading one in American politics, and the absorbing and It shattered into fragments exciting topic of discussion.
as the "Missouri
the old conservative
Whig
It
party, with
which Mr. Lincoln
had, theretofore, acted.
divided the Democratic party,
and
parties were organized upon issues growing out of the question of slavery. directly The leader of that portion of the Democratic party which continued, for a time, to act with the slavery party, was Stephen Arnold Douglas, then representing Illinois in
new
the United States Senate.
He was
a bold, ambitious, able
15
24
He had
llie
man, and had, thus
lar,
been
unifornils' successful.
introduced and carried through Con^nx'ss. against
nK^st
vehement opposition, the repeal of the slavery, called the Missouri Compromise.
law,
jDrohibilin^"
THK
(<»Nri.sr
i;i
iwii.N
irkki)(.).m
and
>i.A\i;k\
ix 'ihk
TKKKITORIKS.
ha\in^ been now tlistinctl\' made between freedom and the extension of sla\'er\' into the territories. Lincoln and Douglas, the leaders of the Free-soil and Dem-
The
issue
ocratic parties,
conflict
became more than
e\'er
antagonized.
The
between freedom and slavery now became earnest, fierce, and \iolent, beyond all [)revious political controversies, and from this time on, Lincoln plead the cause of libert)' w ith an energ\'. abilit\', and elocpience, which rapidh' gained for him a national reputation. From this time dn, through the tremendous struggle, it was he who grasped the helm and led his part\' to \ictor\'. Conscious of a a generous love of libert)', and great cause, inspired by animated b\' the moral sublimit}' of his great theme, he
proclaimed
for freedom,
shall
his
determination, e\er
sla\er\', until
fall,
thereafter,
e\er\'\\
**to
speak
and against
shall
here the sun
shine, the rain
and the wind blow upt)n no
man who goes
THi:
forth to unrequited toil."
LINCOLN AND DOUCJLAS DEBATE.
debate
between Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, was. unquestionabl)', both with reference to the ability of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and e\ents, I do not think I the most important in American histor)-.
great
The
do
when
injustice to others, nor over-estimate their importance, I sa\' that the speeches of Lincoln published, circu-
throughout the I^Vee-States, did more than which preThe speeches the way for the overthrow of sla\er)'. pared of John Ouinc)' i\dams, and those of Senator Sumner, were more learned and scholarl)', and those of Lo\ejo\' and Wendell Phillips were more \ehement and impassioned;
lated,
and
reail
an\- other agenc}' in creating the public opinit)n,
i6
Senators Seward, Chase, and Hale spoke fconi a more conspicuous forum, but Lincoln's speeches were as philosophic,
as able, as earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of illustration, and his language
a plainness, a \ngor, an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than an}' other to reach and influence the understanding
and sentiment of the common people. At the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. Douglas had had a long training and experience as a popu-
On the hustings (stump, as we say in America) and in Congress, and especially in the United States Senate, he had been accustomed to meet the ablest debaters of his State and of the Nation. His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a whole His manner w^as bold, party, had he been discomfited. vigorous, and aggressive. He was ready, fertile in resources, familiar with political history, strong and severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill all the weapons of the His iron will, tireless energy, united w^ith dialectician. and moral courage, and great personal magnetism, physical made him a natural leader, and gave him personal populalar speaker.
rity.
Lincoln was also
He had contended and before the people, with the ablest men of the West,
a thoroughly -trained speaker. successfully at the bar, in the legislature,
now
including Douglas, with whom he always rather sought than avoided a discussion. But he was a courteous and generous
opponent, as
to his rival,
is
illustrated
in
by the following
beautiful allusion
one of their joint debates. "Twent}' years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then; he a trifle younger than L Even then we were both ambitious, I, perhaps, With me, the race of ambition has as much as he. quite a flat failure. With him, it has been a splendid suebeen
1856, in
made
25
cess.
forcicjn
His name
lands.
I
fills
the Nation, and
it
is
not
unknown
in
affect
no contempt for the
liif^h
eminence
he has reached; so reached, that tlie oppressed of ni}' species mi<^ht have shared with me in the elcxation, I would rather stand on that eminence than w ear the richest crown
that ever pressed a monarch's brow." know, and the world knows, that Lincoln did reacli
We
that
it
in
hii;h, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach such a way that the "oppressed" did share with him in
the elevation.
Such were the champions who, in 1858, were to discuss, before the voters of Illinois, and with the whole Nation as spectators, the political questions then pendini;', and especiIt was not a ally the \ital questions relating' to slavery. sinL;le C(Miibat, but extended through a whole campai<^ni.
On
the return of Doucflas from
Washington
to Illinois,
Lincoln and Douglas being candidates for the the former challenged his rival to a series of joint senate, debates, to be held at the principal towns in the State.
in Jul)'. 1858,
The challenge was accepted, and it was agreed that each discussion should occup\' three hours; that the speakers
the opening and the close the opening to occup\' one hour, the reply one hour and a-half, speech and the close half-an-hour. The meetings were lield in the
should alternate
in
—
open
air,
for
no
hall
could
hold
the \ast
crowds which
attended.
from
immense mass of hearers, reporters the principal newspapers in the countr\' attended, so that the morning after each debate the speeches were
In addition to the
all
published
and eagerly read
all
majority of
b\' a large part, j^erliaps a the voters of the United States.
The attention of the American people w as thus arrested, and they watched with intense interest, and devoured every argument of the chamj)ions. Each of these great men, 1 doubt not, at that time Douglas' ardor, while in sincerely believed he was right. such a conflict, would make him think, for the time being,
2
i8
he was
right,
and
I
knoiv that Lincohi argued for freedom
against the extension of sla\'ery with the most profound conviction that on the result hung the fate of his country. Lincoln had two advantages over Douglas; he had the best
and the best temper. He was always good-humored, always had an apt story for illustration, while Douglas sometimes, when hard pressed, was irritable. Douglas carried away the most popular applause, but Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate ad captandiun
side of the question,
permanent conviction. him to raise a storm of applause (which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories), he refused, saying the "I do not occasion was too serious, the issue too grave. seek applause," said he, "nor to amuse the people, I want
at
triumph, while
Lincoln aim.ed
Sometimes when Lincoln's
friends urged
to convince them."
It was often observed, during this canvass, that while Douglas was sometimes greeted with the loudest cheers when Lincoln closed, the people seemed solemn and serious, and could be heard all through the crowd, gravely and anxiously discussing the topics on which he had been
speaking.
Douglas secured the immediate object of the struggle, tlie vigorous logic, the honesty and sincerity, the great intellectual powers exhibited by Mr. Lincoln, prepared the wa}', and two years later, secured his nomination and election to the presidency. It is a touching incident, illustrating the patriotism of both these statesmen, that, widely as they differed, and keen as had
but the manly bearing,
been their rivalry, just as soon as the life of the Republic was menaced by treason, they joined hands to shield and save the country they loved. The echo and the prophecy of this great debate was heard, and inspired hope in the far- oft" cotton and ricefields of the South. The toiling blacks, to use the words
of Whittier, began hopefully to pray:
26
'9
"We
I
pray de Lord.
l)at
He
gib us signs
)e
some day we be free. Xorf wind tell it to de pines,
1
)e
wild duck to de sea.
"
We
it when de church-bell ring, dream it in de dreani, De rice-bird mean it wiien he sing, De eagle when he scream."
tink
We
THE COUl'KK-IXSTIl'UTE SPKKCH.
Ill
I'Y'bruary,
i860, Mr. Lincoln
was called
to address
the people of New York, and speaking to a vast audience at the Cooper Institute (the Exeter Hall of the United
States), the poet
most learned,
in
Bryant presidint^-, he made, perhaps, the logical, and exhausti\e speech to be found
American
power
The question was, the anti-slavery literature. of the National (jovernment to exclude slavery from
the territories.
The
after this speech,
awoke
orator from the prairies, the mornings to find himself famous.
He
right
closed with these words, "Let us ha\-c faith that
makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, doour duty as we understand it." This address was the carefull)'-finished product of not
an orator and statesman onK', but also of an accurate student of American histor\-. It confirmed and elevated the
reputation he had already accjuired
in
the ])ou<^das debates,
nomination and election to the presidency. If time permitted, I would like to follow Mr. Lincoln, step by step, to enumerate his measures one after another, until, by prudence and coura«^e, and matchless statesmanhis
shi]),
and caused
he led the loyal people of the republic to the
slaver\-
final
and complete overthrow of
the Union.
and the restoration of
in
From
assume the
the time he
left
his
humble home
Illinois,
to
— the tempest which had been feathering and
black and threatening for
}'ears,
responsibilities of power, the political horizon with treason and rebellion, the terrific thunder clouds, black
now
read)' to explode,
growing more on
—
20
through long years ot bloody war, down to his final triumph and death what a drama! His eventful life terminated by his tragic death, has it not the dramatic unities
and
on,
—
and the awful ending of the Old Greek tragedy?
HIS
I
FAREWELL TO HIS NEIGHBORS.
pathetic than the friends and neigh-
scene
bors.
know of nothing in history more when he bade good-bye to his old
Conscious of the
difficulties
ness as
difficulties and dangers before him, which seemed almost insurmountable, with a sadthough a presentiment that he should return no
more was pressing upon him, but with a deep religious trust which was characteristic, on the platform of the rail-carriage which was to bear him away to the Capital, he paused
and
ing.
said,
"No one
I
can realize the sadness
I feel
at this part-
have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here mv children were born, and here one of them lies I go I know not how soon I shall see you again. buried. to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved
Here
upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded but for the aid of Divine Pro^ vidence upon which, at all times, he relied. I hope you, my dear friends, will all pray that I
that Divine assistance, without which
I
'"
''''
may
receive
can not succeed, but
with which success
is
certain."
to
his hand in farewell to the old home, which he w^as never to return, he heard the response from many old friends, "God bless and keep you." "God His neighbors "sorrowing protect you from all traitors." most of all," for the fear "that they should see his face no
And
as he
waved
more."
HIS
INAUGURAL AND APPEAL FOR PEACE.
In his inaugural address, spoken in the open air, and from the eastern portico of the capitol, and heard by thrice ten thousand people, on the very verge of ci\'il war, he made a most earnest appeal for peace. He gave the most
2
I
solemn assurance, that "the property, peace, and security of no portion of the RepubHc should be endant^ered by his
athiiinistration."
l^ut
lie
declared
with firmness, that the
union of the States must be "perpetual," and that he should "execute the laws faithfully in every State." "In doinc^
this,'"
"there need be no bloodshed nor \iolence, nor shall there be, unless forced upon the National Ausaid
he,
thorit)'."
In regard
to the difficulties
which thus divided
the people, he appealed to all to abstain from precipitate action, assuring them that intelligence, patriotism, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken the
Republic, "were competent to adjust,
existing troubles."
in
the best wa\',
all
His closing appeal against civil war was most touch"In your hands," said he, and his voice for the first ing, time faltered, "In your hands, and not in mine, are the
momentous
liave
''^
"''^
issues of civil war."
"
'"
'-
"You can
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." "I am," continued he, "loth to close, we are not
friends.
strain,
enemies, but
passion
*
may
—
it
We must not be enemies, though must not break the bonds of affec-
A.
tion.
"
was the attack upon Fort Sumpter, and immediately broke loose all the maddening passions which riot in blood and carnage and ci\il war. I know not how I can better picture and illustrate the condition of affairs and of public feeling at that time, than by narrating two or three incidents.
to these appeals
The answer
DOUGLAS' PROPHECY, JANUARY
I,
1861.
in Januar}', 1861, Senator Douglas, then lateU' a candidate for the presidenc}', with Mrs. Douglas, one of the most
and fascinating women in America, a relative of Mrs. Madison, occupied at Washington a house in a most magnificent block of dwellings, called the "Minnesota Block." On New- Year's -day, 1861, Gen. Charles Stewart of New York, from whose lips I write an account (jf the
beautiful
incident, says:
o o
"I
after
was making a New-Year's-call on Senator Douglas; some conversation, 1 asked him: "'What will be the result, Senator, of the efforts of
Davis and
his associates
to divide the Union?' on the sofa together when I asked the question. Douglas rose, walked rapidly up and down the room for a moment, and then pausing, he exclaimed, with deep feeling and excitement: " 'The Cotton States are making an effort to draw in the Border States to their schemes of Secession, and I am If thev do, there will be but too fearful thev will succeed. the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen, lasting
Jefferson
We
were," said Stewart, "sitting
for years.'
"Pausing a moment, he looked like one inspired, while he proceeded: 'Virginia, over yonder, across the Potomac,' pointing toward Arlington, 'will become a charnel-house but in the end the Union will triumph. They will try,' he
—
continued, 'to get possession of this Capital, to give them prestige abroad, but in that eftbrt they will never succeed;
masse to defend it. But Washington will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used This house,' he continued, 'the for the sick and wounded.
the North will rise
eii
Minnesota Block will be devoted to that purpose before the end of the war.' "^ all the Every word he said was literally fulfilled churches nearly were used for the wounded, and the Minnesota Block, and the very room in which this declaration was made, became the "Douglas Hospital."
—
"'What
"'There
"'I will
justification for all
is
this.'''
said Stewart.
no justification,' replied Douglas. go as far as the constitution will permit to maintain their just rights. But,' said he, rising upon his feet and raising his arm, 'if the Southern States attempt to secede, I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, and just so much slave territory as they can hold at the " point of the bayonet, and no more.'
28
WILL TIIK NORTH
AlaiU'
1
ICHT
?
Suuthcrn leaders beliexed
there would
be no
serious war, and labored kidustriousl\' to impress this idea
on the Southern people. Ik^njamin V lUitler, wlio,
.
from Massachuhad \'oted man\' times setts to the Charlestown Convention, for Brecken ridge, the extreme Southern candidate for presias a delegate
came to Washington in the winter of 1 860-1, to inof his old associates what they meant by their threats. (|uire
dent,
a mean," replied the}', "we mean Separation Southern Confederacy. We will ha\e our independence, a Southern government with no discordant elements."
"We
—
—
"Are
prepared for war.'" said Butler, coolU'. "Oh, there will be no war; the North won't fight." "The North Tc-/// fight," said l^utler, "the North will
\'Ou
last
i)ia)i
send the
and expend the
Ikitler's
last dollar to
maintain the
Government."
"But," replied
can't fight
— we
Southern
friends, "the
North
have too
friends,"
many
allies there."
responded Butler, "in the North, who will stand b\' \'ou st) long as )'ou fight your battles in the Union, but the moment you fire on the flag, the North will be a unit against you." "And," Butler continued, "you ma)' be assured if w ar comes, slavery euds^
"You have
THK SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS,
JULY, 1861.
On
the brink of this
to
civil
war, the President
summoned
meet on the 4th of July, 1861, the anniversary Congress Seven states had already seceded, of our Independence. were in open revolt, and the chairs of their representatives, It needed but a in both h(juses of Congress, were \acant. so numerous vacant seats to realize the glance at these extent of the defection, the gravity of the situation, and
The old prothe magnitude of the impending struggle. Some in the rebel governslavery leaders were absent.
ment, set up
at
Richmond, and others marshalling troops
24
in the field.
dome
Hostile armies were gathering, and from the of the Capitol, across the Potomac, and on toward Fairfax, in Virginia, could be seen the Confederate flag.
now
still
Breckenridge, late the Southern candidate for president,, Senator from Kentucky, and soon to lead a rebel army,
lingered
in
the Senate.
Like Cataline among the
Senators, he was regarded with aversion and distrust. Gloomy and perhaps sorrowful, he said, "I can only look \\ith sadness on the melancholy drama that is being
enacted."
Roman
Pardon the digression, while
occurred
in
I
relate an incident
which
the Senate at this special session. Senator Baker of Oregon was making a brilliant and
in
which he denounced the Kentucky senator, for giving aid and encourAt length he agement to the enemy by his speeches. paused, and turning toward Breckenridge, and fixing his eye upon him, he asked, "What would have been thought after the battle of Cannae, a Roman senator had risen if, amidst the conscript Fathers, and denounced the war, and opposed all measures for its success r' Baker paused, and every eye in the Senate and in the crowded galleries was fixed upon the almost solitary senator from Kentucky. Fessenden broke the painful silence by exclaiming, in low deep tones, which gave expression to the thrill of indignation, which ran through the hall, "He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock." Congress manifested its sense of the gravity of the situation by authorizing a loan of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and empowering the President to call into the field five hundred thousand men, and as many more as he might deem necessary.
impassioned reply to a speech of Breckenridge,
SURRENDER OF MASON AND SEIDELL.
No
act of the British
Government, since the "stamp
act" of the Revolution, has ever excited such intense feeling of hostility toward Gfeat Britain, as her haughty
25
clcniaiul
for
29
Mason
and
Slidell.
It
the
in
surrender
tlie
of
President to stem the storm of popular feehn^^ and yield to that demand, and it was, for a time, the most unpopuhir aet of liis administration. Hut when the excitement o( the day had passed, it was
required //cm-
appro\cd
b)'
the sober judi;nicnt of the Nation.
is kindly and f]^ratefull\- remembered in America, where it is belie\-ed that his action, in modif}'in^ the terms of that demand, prt)bably saved the UnitedStates and Great Britain from the horrors of war.
Prince Albert
LINCOLN AND MIL AlloLmON OF SLAVLRV.
When
in
Lincoln startled
government half- free," and when, at the close of his speech, to those who were laborini; for the ultimate extinction of slaver}\
he exclaimed, with the
fail,
June, 1858, at his home in Springfield, Mr. the people with the declaration, "This can not endure, permanenth', half-slave and
\c)ice of a
prophet,
fail.
"We
shall
not
if
we stand
firm,
we
shall Not
Wise councils may
accelerate, or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the vic-
tory is sure to come;" he anticipated success throui^h \ears of discussion, and final triumph through peaceful and constitutional
means
b\'
the ballot.
He
did not
forsee nor
those dim m\'sterious shadows, which sometimes startle by half-re\'ealing the future) his own elevation to the presidency. He did not then suspect that
in
even dream (unless
he had been appointed by God, and should be choosen by
the people to proclaim the emancipation of a race, and to save his country. He did not forsee that slaver\- was so
soon to be destro\'ed amidst the flames of war which
kindled.
itself
IMS
M()I)i:i<.\'l I().\.
He entered upon his administration w ith the single purpose of maintaining national unity, and manv reproachetl and denounced him for the slowness of his ant i- slavery
measures.
The
first
(jf
the series was the abolition of sla-
26
very
This act gave freedom to the National Capital. with compensation to their loyal slaves, masters. Contemporaneous with this was an act conferat
three
thousand
ring freedom upon all colored soldiers who should serve in The next was the Union armies and upon their families.
slavery in
had the honor to introduce, prohibiting territories, and wherev^er the National Government had jurisdiction. But the great, the decisive act of his administration, was the "Emancipation Proclaan
act,
which
all
I
the
mation."
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
The President had urged with
on the
all
the utmost earnestness
lo}'al slave-holders of the Border States, gradual and
compensated emancipation, but
He clearly saw, in vain. that the slaves, as used by the confederates, were a saw, vast power, contributing immensely to their ability to carry
on the war, and that by declaring their freedom, he would convert millions of freedftien into active friends and allies of the Union. The people knew that he was deliberating upon the question of issuing this Emancipation Proclamation. At this crisis, the Union men of the Border States made an appeal to him to withhold the edict, and suffer
slavery to survive. They selected John
J. Crittenden, a venerable and eloand their ablest statesman, to make, on the floor quent man, of Congress, a public appeal to the President, to withhold
Mr. Crittenden had been governor of the proclamation. Kentucky, her senator in Congress, attorney-general of the United States, and now, in his old age, covered with honors,
he accepted, like John Ouincy Adams, a seat in Congress, that in this crisis he might help to save his country. He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to
disturb slavery.
made a most eloquent Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. He said, among other things, "There is a niche, near to that If Mr. of Washington, to him who shall save his country.
In his speech, he
a
and touching appeal from
30
Lincoln
will
stcj) into
server of the Republic shall stand side b\' side." (Owen Lovejo)', tlie brother of I^lijah P. Lovejo)',
that niclic, the fouudtT and the pre" *
who
liad
been mobbed and murdered, because he would not surrender the libert)' of the press, replied to Crittenden. .After his brother's murder, kneelin*; upon the green sod which covered tliat brother's grav^e, lie had taken a solemn vow i^{ eternal war upon sla\er\'. V.xqx after, like Peter tlie
Hermit, with
liad
a heart of fire
and
a
tongue of lightning, he
crusade against slavery. At gone preaching in his reph', turning to Crittenden, he said, "The length, gentleman from Kentuck)' says he has a niche for Abraham
forth, his
Lincoln, where
is it.'"
Crittenden pointed toward Heaven.
if
Lovejo}' continuing said, "He points upward, but, sir! the l^resident follows the counsel of that gentleman, and
becomes the perpetuator of slaver}', he should point doivnward, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds on human blood, and where are forged chains for human limbs; in the recesses of whose temple woman is scourged
and man tortured, and outside the walls are K'ing dogs, gorged with human flesh, as B\Ton describes them lying around the walls of Stambool." "That," said Lovejoy, "is a suitable place Tor the statue of him who would perpetuate
"
sla\er}'.
he, "ha\e a temple for Abraham Lincoln, not surrounded freedom's hol\' fane, slave- fetters and chains, but with the s\'mbois of freeby dom not dark w ith bondage, but radiant with the light of In that niche he shall stand proudl}', nobh', glorilibert)'. with broken chains and slaves" whips beneath his feet. ously,
"I, too," said
is
but
it
in
'''
—
^'
fame worth li\ing for, a\'e, more, fame worth d\ing for, though that death led through semene and the agon\' of the accursed tree."
That
is
"
a
it
is
a
(leth"
'^^
"^'^
"It
is
said," continued
lie,
"that W'ilberforce went up to
the judgment seat witli the broken chains of eight luindred tliousand slaves! Let Lincoln make himself the Liberator,
28
and
his
name
it
temple, but
be enrolled, not only in this earthly shall be traced on the living stones of that
shall
is
temple which
reared amid the thrones of Heav^en."
Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled in this world you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his in that other world feet, rising all over the world, and
—
—
— —
few
will
doubt that the prophecy has been
September,
1862,
after
realized.
In
the Confederates,
by
their
defeat
at
the great
battle of Antietam,
had been driven
back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the It is a fact, illustrating his character, and Proclamation. there was in him what many would call a showing that tinge of superstition, that he declared to Secretary Chase that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, "if General Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown the
result with
the declaration of
P^REEDOM TO THE SLAVE."
first
The
final
Proclamation was issued on the
of January,
In obedience to an American custom, he had been 1863. receiving calls on that New-Year's-day, and, for hours, shak-
As the paper was brought to him by the Secreing hands. of State to be signed, he said, "Mr. Sewa;rd, I have been tary
shaking hands
lyzed.
act,
I
If
and
my my whole
day, and my right hand is almost paraname ever gets into history, it will be for this
all
soul
is
in
it.
If
my
sign the proclamation, those who hereafter, will say, "he hesitated."
hand trembles when examine the document
to the table,
Then
resting his
arm
a
moment, he turned
took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote AbraJiani Lincoln. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he
said,
"that will do."
From
seemed
this day, to its final triumph, the tide of victory
to set
more and more
in favor of
the Union cause.
The
capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, Chat-
tanooga, Chickamauga, Lookout-Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Sheridan's brilliant campaign in the Valley of the Shenan-
doah;
Thomas' decisive victory march through the Confederacy
at
to the sea;
Nashville; Shermans the capture of
31
29
sinkiug of tJic Alnbauia ; the taking of Farragut; the occupation of Columbus, Charleston, "Savannah; the evacuation of Petersburg aiul Ivichmond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the taking of JefferFort McAllister;
b\'
X.\\ii
Mobile
son Davis a prisoner; the triumph everywhere of the National Arms; such were the events which followed (though with
dela\'s
and bloodshed) the "Proclamation of F^mancipation."
nil-:
AMhNDMliXT TO THK CoNSTlTUTK )X.
been triumphant!}' reelected, before stated, abolished slavery at the Congress all Capital, prohibited it in all tlie territories, declared
had, as
Meanwhile Lincoln had
negro soldiers in tlie Union armies and their families free, and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized slavery, and the President had crowned and consummated
all
by the proclamation of emancipation. One thing alone remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly permanent these measures, and this was to embody in the Coneverywhere within
stitution itself the prohibition of slavery
the Republic.
To change the organic law, required the adoption by a two-thirds' vote of a joint resolution b\' Congress, and that this should be submitted to and ratified bv three-fourths of
the States.
The President, in his annual message and in personal interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage of
such resolution.
1864,. to
To
test th(? strength of the
I
measure,
in
in
the
House of Representatives.
had the honor,
February,
introduce the following resolution: "'Resolved, That the Constitution sliould be so
as to abolish slaver)- in the United States wherever
exists,
amended it now
e\'er\- part thereof forever" (Cong, (ilobe, vol. 50, p. 659). This was adopted by a decided vote, and was the first resolution e\'er passed
and
to
prohibit
its
existence
in
by Congress
J^ut,
in
it
favor of
the entire abolition
a majorit}',
it
of
slavery.
although
received
did
not receive a
majorit}- of two-thirds.
30
(perhaps the greatest in our Congressional history, certainly the most important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran thi'bugh
The debates on
the Constitutional
Amendment
two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the learned senator from Massachusetts, brought to the discussion in the Senate his ample stores of historical illustration, quoting largely in its favor from the historians, poets, and statesof the past. resolution was adopted in the Senate vote of ayes, 38, noes, 6.
men
The
by the
it
large
to
In the lower
House,
at
the
first
session,
failed
two -third vote, went over to the next session.
obtain a
and, on a motion to reconsider,
Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and in a letter to Illinois friends, he said, "The signs look better. ^ * I Peace does not look so distant as it did. hope
it
will
come
soon, and
come
to stay,
and so come as to be
worth keeping in all future time." I recall very vividly my New-Year's-call upon the Presi-
one year from today I may have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occurrence of three events which now seem probable."
I said: dent, January, 1864. Mr. President, 'T hope,
"What
"I.
are they.''" inquired he.
That the rebellion may be entirely crushed. "2. That the Constitutional Amendment, abolishing and prohibiting slavery, may have been adopted.
"3.
And
that
Abraham Lincoln may have been
re-
elected President."
'T think," replied he, with a smile, *T would be glad to accept the first two as a compromise."
remarkable for that clear good-sense and practical judgment for which he is distinguished, condensed into a single sentence the political argument in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, "The North
General Grant,
in
a
letter,
and South," said
he,
except as one nation
"can ;iever live at peace with each other and tliat zvitJiotit slavcryT
31
(iARllLl.U S STKIXII,
32
be ^lad to quote from this great debate, but I would must confine myself to a brief extract from the speecli of
the })resent President, then a
member
know
of
tlie
House.
He
so
began "Mr. Speaker, we
b)'
saying:
shall
never
\\h\' sla\er\' dies
Republic and in this Hall, until we know why sin outlives disaster and Satan is immortal." "How well do I remember. he continued, "the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. iiiddiugs, hard
in
this
"'
'-'^
'-
"
lateU'
ful
tice,
gone to men, took
protested
his
his rest,
who, w
his
ith
his forlorn
in
hope of
faith-
his life in
hands and,
the
against
the
liis
brave!}' in
place until
'"
Henry
raged
lifted
of
Navarre, marked
"
great crime, white locks, like the plume of where the battle of freedom
its
name of Jusand who stood
fiercest."
its
"In
mad
arrogance, slavery
hand against tlie Union, and since that fatal da}-, it has been a fugitive and a \agabond upon the earth." L'p to the last roll-call, on the question of the passage of the resolution, we were uncertain and anxious about the We needed Democratic votes. We knew we should result. get some, but whether enough to carry the measure, none
could surely
tell.
As
was the
talh'
the clerk called the
silence that the
names of members, so perfect sound of a hundred pencils keeping
could be heard throuc^h the Hall. J'inalU-, when the call was completed, and the speaker announced that the Resolution was adopted, the result was
Memby an uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm. and spectators (especiall)' the galleries, which were crowded with convalescent soldiers) shouted and cheered, and before the speaker could obtain quiet, the roar of artilreceived
bers
lery on Capitol
Hill proclaimed to the Cit>' of
Washington
the passage of the Resolution. Congress adjourned, and we liastened to the White House to congratulate the President on the event.
He made one
of
his
happiest speeches.
In
his
own
32
peculiar words, he said,
The great job is finisJiedr **I can not but congratulate," said he, "all present, myself, the country, and the whole world on this great moral victory."
''
PERSONAL CHARACTP:RISTICS.
And
now, with an attempt to sketch very briefly some
of his peculiar personal characteristics, I must close. This great Hercules of a man had a heart as kind and
It tender as a woman. Sterner men thought it a weakness. saddened him to see others suffer, and he shrunk from inflictLet me illustrate his kindness and tenderness by ing pain. one or two incidents. One summer's day, walking along the shaded path leading from the Executive-mansion to the War-office, I saw the tall, awkward form of the President seated on the grass under a tree. A wounded soldier, seeking back- pay and a pension, had met the President, and Lincoln sat having recognized him, asked his counsel. down, examined the papers of the soldier, and told him what to do, sent him to the proper Bureau with a note,
which secured prompt attention.
Lee
After the terribly destructive battles between Grant and in the Wilderness of Virginia, after days of dreadful
slaughter, the lines of ambulances, conveying the wounded from the steamers on the Potomac to the great field hospitals on the heights around Washington, would be continu-
unbroken line from the wharf to the hospital. I have seen the President in his carriage, driving slowly along the line, and he looked like one who had lost the dearest members of his own family. On one such occasion, meeting me, he stopped and said, "I can not
ous,
— one
At
such a time,
bear
this; this suffering, this loss of life
I
—
is
dreadful."
him a line from a letter he had j^ears before written to a friend whose great sorrow he had sought to console. Reminding him of the incident, I asked him, "Do you remember writing to your suffering friend these words:
recalled to
''And this too shall pass away, Never fear. Victory will comer
33
In
all
33
durin<; these years
his State papers
and speeclies
of
strife
ness,
and passion, there can be found no words of bitterWhen others railed, he railed not no denunciation.
a^ain.
always dignified, ma«^nanimous, patient, conHis duty was ever performed siderate, manly, and true. toward non(\ with charity for all," and with "with malice
**firmness in the ri^ht as Ciod
ij;;ives
He was
us to see the
riiiht."
NEVKR A
1)EMAG()(;UE.
Lincoln was nex'cr a demagogue. He respected and loved the people, but never flattered them. No man ever heard him allude to his humble life and manual labor, in a
way
to obtain \'otes.
ting rails did not ized painfull}' the
diligent!}'
None knew better than he, qualify a man for public duties.
defects of
his
that split-
He
real-
education, and
labored
and
successfull}- to
supply
his deficiencies.
HIS CONVERSATION.
He had
sation
no equal as a talker
in social
life.
His conver-
was fascinating and attractive. He was full of wit, humor, and anecdote, and at the same time, original, sugThere was in his character a singestive, and instructive. of mirthfulness and melancholy. While his gular mingling sense of the ludicrous was keen, and his fun and mirth were exuberent, and sometimes almost irrepressible; his conversation sparkling with jest, stor}% and anecdote and in droll description, he would pass suddenly to another mood, and become sad and pathetic a melancholy expression of his homely face would show that he was "a man of sorrows and
—
acquainted with
grief."
HIS STORIES.
The newspapers
Lincoln's stories
lous.
America have alwa}'s been full of and anecdotes, some true and man}- fabuin
if
He always had a stor}' ready, and provise one just fitted for the occasion.
I
not,
he could im-
The
following ma}',
think, be said to hav^c been adapted:
•>
34
Atlantic port, in one of the British provinces, was^ the war, a great resort and refuge for blockade-runduring ners, and a large contraband trade was said to have been
An
Late in carried on from that port with the Confederates. the summer of 1864, while the election of president was
of that province, with
tive.
pending, Lincoln being a candidate, the Governor-General some of the principal officers, visited
Washington, and called to pay their respects to the execuMr. Lincoln had been very much annoyed by the failure of these officials to enforce very strictly the rules of
guests with great courtesy. the Governor, alluding to the pleasant interview, approaching presidential election, said, jokingly, but with a
neutrality,
his
but
he treated
After a
grain of sarcasm, "I understand, Mr. President, everybody If we remain until November, can votes in this countr}^
we
vote.^"
"You remind me,"
man
in
replied the President, "of a countryPat arriv^ed of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland.
New York on election-day, and was, Your Excellency to vote, and to vote
often.
perhaps, as eager as
early and
late
and
So,
upon
his landing at Castle
Garden, he hastened
to the nearest voting place,
who
for.-^
as he approached, the judge received the ballots, inquired, 'who do you want to vote
and
Poor Pat was embarrassed, on which side are you.^' He stopped, he did not know who were the candidates.
scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his country-
men, he said: Tell me, if "'I am foment the Government, anyhow. Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and I'll tell your you how I want to vote. In Ould Ireland, I was always on
the rebellion side, and,
by Saint
Patrick,
I '11
stick
to that
same in America.' "Your Excellency,"
think, not be at
all
said Mr. Lincoln, "would,
I
should
at a loss
on which side to vote.^"
THE BOOKS HE READ.
The two books he
read most were the Bible and Shake-
,,
34
spcarc.
With them lie was famihar, rcadini; aiul i[uoting' Next to Shakespeare, amon<^ the them constanth'. from
poets,
was l^urns. witli whom he had a hearty s)'mpathy, He was upon whose poetr\^ lie wrote a lecture. extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and ])lainand
music.
I
tive
White House, to introduce two Union army, both Swedes. Immediatel}' he and repeated from memory, to the delight of his began \isitors, a long ballad, descriptive of Norwegian scenery, a Norse legend, and the ad\entures of an old X'iking among
called one da\- at the
officers of the
the fiords of the North.
He
\isit
said he
had read the poem
it
in
a newspaper,
and the
of these Swedes recalled
to his
On
the last Sunda\' of his
life,
as
memory. he was sailing up the
Potomac, returniuij to Washinc^ton from his \'isit to Richmond, he read aloud man}- extracts from Macbeth, and among others, the following, and with a tone and accent so impressive that, after his death, it was \'ividly recalled by
those
who heard him:
"Duncan
After
life's
fitful
is
in
his grave;
fever,
Treason has done
his
he sleeps well; worst: nor steel, nor poison.
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him fui ther "
!
recall this
After his assassination, those friends could not passage from the same play.
"This Duncan
ilatli
.So
fail
to
borne his faculties so meek, hath been
clear in his great office, that his virtues
"
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation
of his taking-off.
HIS KKI.K.ION.
It is strange that an)- reader of Lincoln's speeches and w ritings should have had the hardihood to charge him w ith infidelity, but the charge having been repeated!}- made,
1
reply, in
the light of facts accessible to
all,
that no
more
36
excepting Washington) ever filled the Declarations of his trust in God, his faith in the efficacy of prayer, pervade his speeches and From the time he left Springfield, to his death, writings. he not only himself continually prayed for Divine assistance,
rev^erent christian (not
chair of President.
but never failed to ask the prayers of others for himself and
his country.
His reply to the negroes of Baltimore, who,
])resented their love and gratitude, ought to have silenced
in
1864,
him with
a
beautiful
Bible, as an expression
all
of
who have
"
This After thanking them, he said, charges. book is the best gift God has given to man. All the great good from the Saviour of the world is communicated through
this
made such
book."
Congress, knowing his religious character, asked him "why he did not join some church.^" Mr. Lincoln replied, "Because I found difficulty, without
a
When
member
of
mental reservation,
complicated inscribe over
its
in giving my assent to their long and When any church will confessions of faith.
altar the Saviour's
condensed statement of
law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," that church will I join with all my
heart."
WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED.
Let us try to sum up
in
part what he accomplished.
an
he assumed the duties of the executive, he found empty treasury, the National credit gone, the little nucleus of an armv and nav\- scattered and disarmed, the
officers,
When
who had not deserted to the rebels, strangers; the which elected him in a minorit}' (he having been party elected only because his opponents were divided between Douglas, Breckenridge, and Everett), the old Democratic party, which had ruled most of the time for half a century, hostile, and even that part of it in the North, from longassociation, in s}'mpath}- with the insurgents; his
own party
o/
iiuide
35
up of discordant elements, and neither he nor his had acciuired prestige and the confidence of the peoparty It is the exact truth to say that when he entered the ple. f[7//A' House he was the object of personal prejudice to a
American people, and of contempt to a He entered upon his task of restoring powerful minorit}'.
niajoritv of
the
the integrity of a
an)' of the great
brc^ken Union, without sympath\- from powers of Western r>urope. Those which
were not hostile, manifested a cold neutrality, exhibiting toward him and his government no cordfal good -will, nor extending an\' moral aid. Vet, in spite of all, he crushed the most stupendous rebellion, supported by armies more vast, by resources greater, and an organization more perfect
than ever before undertook the dismemberment of a
nation.
He
united and held together, ai/ainst contending
and strengthened it by securing the confidence and winning the support of the best part of all He composed the cjuarrels of rival generals; and parties.
factions, his o\\\\ part}',
at length,
all
won the respect and confidence and sympathy of nations and peoples. He was reelected, almost by acclaand after a series of brilliant victories, he annihilated mation,
all
armed opposition. He led the people, step b}' step, to emancipation, and saw his work crowned b\' an amendment
of the Constitution, eradicating and prohibiting sla\er)' forever throughout the Republic.
Such is a brief and imperfect summary of his achievements during the last five years of his life. And this good man, when the hour of victory came, made it not the hour of vengeance, but of forgiveness and reconciliation. These five years of incessant labor and fearful responsiHe left Illinois bilit}' told even upon his strength and vigor. for the Capital with a frame of iron and nerves of steel. His old friends who had known him as a man who did not know what illness was who had seen him on the prairies before the Illinois courts, full of life, genial, and sparkling with fun; now saw the wrinkles on his forehead deepened
;
into furrows
— the
laugh of the old days lost
its
heartiness;
38
anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard work wore upon him, and his nerv^es of steel, at times, became irritable. He had When others fled had no respite, had taken no holidays. from the dust and heat of the Capital, he stayed. He away would not leave the helm until all danger was past, and the good ship of state had made her port.
1
will
not dwell
at
American people
his
upon the unutterable sorrow of the But I desire to shocking death.
express here, in this great City of this grand Empire, the the people of the United States scnsibilit}' with which at his death, the sympathy of the English-speakreceived,
ing race.
That sympathy was most eloquently expressed by all. came from Windsor Castle to the White House; from England's widowed Oueen to the stricken and distracted widow at Washington. Erom Parliament to Congress, from
It
the people of
Australia,
all
this
magnificent
Empire, as
it
stretches
to
round the world.
received
Erom England
to India, from
Canada
came words of deep feeling, and they were by the American people, in their sore bereave-
ment, as the expression of a kindred race. I can not forbear referring in particular to the words
spoken in Parliament on that occasion by Lords Russell and Derby, and, especially, by that great and picturesque leader, After a discrimiso lately passed away. Lord J^eaconsfield. nating eulogy upon the late President, and the expression of
profound sympathy, he said
:
•
"Nor is it possible for the people of P^ngland, at such a moment, to forget that he sprang from the same father-land and spake the same mother-tongue." God grant that, in all the unknown future, nothing may
ever disturb
the
friendly feeling
and respect which each
there never be another
nation entertains for the other.
quarrel
in
May
the family.
39
36
I'm
V.
G.
l''i.iAN,
PKKSiDfNc. Ofkickr, at the conclusion called upon Mr. M.A.. who, speaking of the synipatii)- which existed
between the mother-country and the great American nation, attributed it in some degree to tiie influence of tin,' interchange of the literature of the two countries, and showed that that influence, though of a comparatively recent date, was daily becoming more
He spoke widely and deeply ifelt, and would continue to grow. terms of the admiration borne in this country for in. sympathetic the character and work of the lamented Lincoln, and of the intense earnestness with which the operative classes in this countrx Though espoused the cause of the North during the great war.
that earnestness
effects
was undoubtedly,
in
some measure, due
to
the sad
which the paralysis of the cotton industry produced in the great manufacturing districts, he knew, from personal observation and exi)erience during that trying time, that it was also due to the
inherent love of liberty, deep-seated in the heart of England, and ever ready to succor the oppressed of all nations and to help those who were fighting for the cause of freedom.
Mr. Tiiu PAi.i.iAKDiM followed and said:
Mr. Chairman,
Ladiks, and
(iKNTLEMAX:
— Seldom
It
have
I
listened to a paper that has so deeply interested me. us a living portrait of
has given
recent times
—a
one of the most remarkable
individualities ot
portrait, too, traced
i)art
by the hand of one who, havin the great national struggle
ing himself taken a prominent
which put an end
to slavery,
had constant opportunities of seeing
life
it
and studying
in
every phase of his
the eminent
man
he has so
has been said that familiarity though graphically portrayed. breeds contempt, and that there is no hero for his valet, yet men of the Garibaldi and Lincoln type, whose influence on their country
And
and mankind
by
at
large
is
chiefly du-? to
in
mornl
force,
can only gain
a closer view of
them
their prosaic every-day
life.
When we
see the gentler feelings of the human heart combined in a ])rominent man with a rigid sense of duty and the intellectual power and perseverance necessary l(; fulfil that dut), we not only admire that
server, as
1
Hence Abraham Lincoln, the preman, but revere and love him. Washington was the founder of the great L'nion, always,
must confess, stood
hitiher in
mv
estimation and love than
all
the
40
Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons who have reddened the pages of history with their briUiant exploits.
Before his time, I was often taunted by my French republican friends for showing but scant enthusiasm for "La grande Republique Americaine."
it
In answer,
which, though That could not be the the whole of the otherwise glorious Union. model land of Liberty where millions of our fellow-creatures were
only covered
pointed to the huge black spot half, yet extended its moral taint ta
I
born to slavery, to be bought and sold like swine. But when the great deliverer arose, humble though his origin^ as is that of most deliverers, my sentiments toward America
changed.
in
him with enthusiasm and stood almost alone chiefly of readers of the conservative and semi-conservative press; for, to their shame and ultimate discom"
I
hailed
my
circle,
composed
fiture,
the leading papers almost all took the wrong side, prophesying continuous disasters to the anti-slavery party and a consequent Their grand but specious argument, disruption of the Union.
which misled many honest minds, ignorant of the history of the several States, was that the South had as much right to fight for
their liberty as the
United States themselves had
Liberty, indeed!
to fight for their
independence against England.
perpetuate the curse of slavery!
The
liberty to
But Americans must not judge of
British sentiments
by the
conservative press, which only represents a portion of the public^
but which, unfortunately, was that which most easily found its way The real heaft of Great Britain was from the across the Atlantic.
Indeed, Lincoln's warmest sympathizersbeginning with the North. were those who suffered most from the direful American civil contest
— the cotton-spinners and the whole body of the working
as nothing succeeds like success, I
classes.
And
add that in the process of time the undaunted determination of the Northern
to
am bound
States,
under a
series of
generals and
officers,
and
alarming defeats, with their best trained their chief arsenals on the side of the
slave-holders, gradually gained for
Abraham
this
Lincoln, the respect
them and for their great inspirer^ and and admiration of all parties
—
admiration and this respect were vastly increased when, in the hour of victory, all cries for vengeance were hushed, and the hand
of brotherhood was held out to the defeated party by the noblehearted President with the full consent of his victorious country-
men.
37
And now
fact,
7'iz.:
that what was deemed impossible is an accomphshed the abomination of slavery eradicated forever from the
great
American
the
Republic,
land,
I
and
Peace
in
and
Prosperity
restored
throughout
trust
thai,
Mr. Arnold's own
words,
"nothing may ever disturb the friendly feeling and respect which each of the great Anglo-Saxon Nations entertains for the other."
civilization
Already have they given a striking proof of their advanced and friendly feelings, and a noble example to all other
.
burning Alabama but one generation ago, would most certainly have c[uestion, which, led to an obstinate war, ruinous to both countries. That the decicivilized nations, in the peaceful settlement of the
sion of the neutral
just
body of Arbitrators yas impartial and tolerably was proved by its giving at the lime entire satisfaction to neither party, the whole question being, however, soon after completely dropped, leaving no angry feelings behind, as would have done a
in the end. May God grant that any future between these two great nations having a common origin, a common language, a common literature, and so many institutions in common, be settled in the same just, friendly, and
war however successful
differences
rational manner.
No
fratricidal
war must or can ever
arise
between
them.
All their future battles
of science, literature,
must be fought on the peaceful fields and the industrial arts. Victories on these
fields will benefit both,
I will
now conclude
vote of thanks to
and the whole human race into the bargain. these hasty remarks by proposing a hearty the Hon. Isaac N. Arnold for his very valuable
and
interesting paper.
^Vhich was unanimously adopted.
42
NOTE FROM THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT:
No. 132 Piccadilly, London,
Jime
28th, '81.
Dear
T
Sir:
have read with
I
much
wish
all
President Lincoln.
pleasure your interesting paper on men could read it, for the Hfe of
all
your great President affords much that tends to advance I thank you for sending is good and noble among men.
report of your paper.
that
me
the
i^am, very sincerely yours,
John Bright.
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold.
LP:TTER
from
MRS.
ANNE
C.
BOTTA:
Buckingham Palace Hotel, yiiue 22d^ 188I.
My Dear
An
Mr. Arnold:
I
hour ago
intending to glance at the contents
reached home, but I carefully read every word from
clear, exhaustive,
opened the pamphlet you gave me yesterday, and lay it aside to read when I found myself unable to lay it down mitil I had
first
to last.
It is certainly the
and eloquent
tribute to Mr. Lincoln that I
most have
ever seen.
But the pleasure it has given me is quite equalled by the pride I feel in knowing that it was listened to by the London Historical Society, to whom it must have been as novel as interesting.
As a good American, I thank you cordially for thus giving to the English people so noble a picture of our great President, while
at the
same
time,
you presented
to
them
in
person his able friend
and coadjutor.
Very
truly yours,
Anne
C.
Botta.
43
38
'Hie following account of the meeting is taken from a letter of MoNCURK I). C(iNWAY, to the Cincinnati Commercial :
London, June 18, 1881. an unusually large comi)any of ladies evening, and gentlemen gathered in the rooms of tlic Royal Historical Society to listen to a pa])er on Abraham i-incoln, by Hon. Isaar N. Arnold, President of the Chicago Historical Society, autlior also of the "Life of Benedict Arnold, who was in no sense his ances-
On Thursday
"
tor.
*
*
Mr. Arnold, who was accompanied by Mr. Mathews (author of "(letting on in Life") and Mrs. Mathews, was a remarkable figure among the blonde and ruddy Knglish people around him, and who He is a tall, lithe, sinewy sort of greeted him with great cordiality. man, with a brownish complexion, a fine forehead, a (juick, penetrating eye, and a face whose many lines are not the marks of age or It was grateful to sec such care, but the inscriptions of experience.
a typical western man, so self-poised and dignified, so related to his American habitat, and yet so human in his sympathies, come to tell As he went on, I felt that the Entflish about our martvr President. the dreary disquisition [referring to a i)aper which had been read previously] which we liad been enduring, now added to the pictuIt was as if, while we were fumbling resqueness of the situation. in the Valley of Dry Bones, })icking up now Saladin's skull, next Urban's thigh-bone, suddenly our eyes were caught by the eye and front of a man worth many Saladin.s, and a Crusader saving races It is not often that the Royal Historiinstead of destroying them. cal Society has an opportunity of considering history in the making, but the satisfaction with which it a\ailed itself of that given it on Thursday, may have the result of multiplying such opportunities. After a graceful recognition of the debt .Americans owe to their British ancestors, a debt repaid in giving to the Knglish-speaking world Washington and Lincoln. Mr. Arnold stated modestly his long He knew ac(}uaintance with the man of whom he was speaking. him, somewhat intimately, in i)rivate and public life for more than He gave a grai)hic account of the shooting of Lintwenty years. coln's grandtather by an Indian; Mordecai's shooting the Lidian
through a loop-hole of their cabin, as he (the Indian) was carrying younger brother 'i'homas, who lived to become father of the A good ])icture in frontier life was drawn in few words, President. and the figure of young Abraham, "his head protected from the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or i)rairie-wolf," and with the "buckskin breeches and hunting-shirt of the pioneer." "He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and herculean strength. Had he appeared in England or Normandy some centuries ago, he would have been the founder of some I'aronial family, ])ossil)le of a
off his
44 He could have wielded with ease the two-handed Royal dynasty. sword of Guy, or the battle-ax of Richard of the I,ion-heart."' The kindliness and fine feeling of this man, so roughly nurtured, were brought out with art by Mr. Arnold, and all present were impressed by the pathos of the scene when Lincoln was leaving his neighbors * * He to assume the hard duties of his Presidency.
"*
incidents in the life of Lincoln at Washington, and gave an excellent account of his personal characteristics. Among other things he related that when a member of Congress asked him why he did not join some church, Lincoln replied: "Betold
some touching
cause I found difficulty, without mental reservation, in giving my When consent to the long and complicated confessions of faith. any church will inscribe over its altar the Saviour's condensed statement of law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that church will T join with all my heart." [The substitution of "gospel'' for Christ's word, "prophets," in this story is an indication of how new versions are made by other than royal comThis anecdote, like several other things in Mr. Arnold's missions.] The reader showed a good deal of essay, was warmly applauded. feeling when he described Lincoln near the close of his career. "He left Illinois for the Capital, with a frame of iron and nerves of His old friends who had known him as a man who did not steel. know what illness was, who had seen him on the prairies before the Illinois courts, full of life, genial, and sparkling with fun, now saw wrinkles on his forehead deepened into furrows the laugh of the old days lost its heartiness; anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard work wore upon him, and his nerves of steel at times became irritable. He had no respite, had taken no holidays. When others He fled away from the dust and heat of the Capital, he stayed. would not leave the helm until all danger was past, and the good ship of state had made her port.'" When, in conclusion, Mr. Arnold spoke with earnestness of the sympathy which came from the English-speaking race at Lincoln's death, and of the sympathy which "came from Windsor Castle to
—
the AVhite House," it is probable that which he had not thought of
'^
his *
words carried suggestions
*
39
4.^
-
NOTE FROM ROHl-RT
War
T.
LINCOLN:
Di:rARTMENT, Washington,
Aug.
20,
1
88
1.
Mv Dkar
Mr. Arnold:
Please accept
my
thanks
for the cop\' of }'our
I
address before the Royal
Historical Societ)-, which
have
read carefully and with the greatest pleasure.
I
tell
vou sincerch' that
1
ha\'e never
seen an\'thin""
of the character so gratif\'ing to myself and so complete.
General R.
S.
Drum, our adjutant
-
general,
has also read
your
is
lecture.
He
is
a very
warm
friend of
my
can
I
father,
and
very anxious to have a copy for preservation.
I
will
be very
much
or to
for
obliged
if
\'ou
send
one,
either directly to
him
me
for him, as
wish to keep
the copy
I
now have
myself
sincerely yours,
Very
Robert
Hon.
1.
T.
Lincoln.
N. .\rnoli),
Chicago.
40
'\
4
41
A
^^^^
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Read before The Royal Historical
London, June
BY
16111,
Society,
i/
1881.
Hon.
ISAAC
N.
ARNOLD,
F.R.H.S.
STEPHEN
A.
31),
DOLGLAS:
1861.
AN EULOGY
Delivered before The Chicago University,
July
BY
Hon.
JAMES
W.
SHEAHAN.
CHICAGO:
FERGU.S PRINTING COMPANY,
1
881.
43
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Bv HON. ISAAC N.
ARNOLD.
A
Paper read before the Royal Historical Society, London, June
16,
1881.
noblest inheritance we, Americans, derive from our British ancestors is the memory and example of the They are great and good men who adorn }'our history. as much appreciated and honored on our side of the In giving to the English-speaking Atlantic as on this. world Washington and Lincoln we think we repa\', in Their preeminence in Amerilarge part, our obligation. can histor\' is recognized, and the republic, which the one founded and the other preserved, has, alread)', crowned theni as models for her children. In the annals of almost every great nation some names appear standing out clear and prominent, names of those who have influenced, or controlled, the great events which make up history. Such were Wallace and Bruce, in Scotland. Alfred and the Edwards, William the Conqueror.
Thk
Cromwell, Pitt, Nelson, and Wellington, in England, and such in a still greater degree were Washington and Lincoln. I am here, from near his home, with the hope that I
may, to some extent, aid
estimate of
\'ou in
forming a just and true
I
Abraham
Lincoln.
knew him, somewhat
intimately, in private and public life for more than twent\' \\'e practised law at the same bar, and, during years. his administration, I was a member of Congress, seeing him and conferring with him often, and, therefore, I ma\' hope without vanit>', I trust that I shall be able to contribute something of \'alue in enabling you to judge of him. in America, as well as \'ou in the old world, believe that "blood will tell;" that it is a great blessing to have had an honorable and worth)' ancestry.
We
We
12
1
66
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
believ^e
that moral principle, physical and intellectual the forefathers are qualities likely to be maniFools are not the fathers or the descendants. I claim for mothers of great men. Lincoln, humble as was the station to which he was born, and rude and rough as were his early surroundings, that he had such I mean that his father and mother, his ancestors. grandfather and grandmother, and still further back, however
vigor in fested in
humble and rugged
their condition,
were physically and
mentally strong, vigorous men and women; hardy and successful pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. They were among the early settlers in Virginia, Kentucky, and Illinois, and knew how to take care of themselves in the midst of difficulties and perils; how to live and sucThese ancestors of ceed when the weak would perish. Lincoln, for several generations, kept on the very crest on the frontier, of the wave of Western settlements where the struggle for life was hard and the strong alone
—
survived.
His grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, and his father, Thomas, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia. About 1 78 1, while his father was still a lad, his grandfather's family emigrated to Kentuck}% and was a contemporary with Daniel Boone, the celebrated Indian fighter and early hero of that State. This, a then wild and wooded territory, was the scene of those fierce and desperate conflicts between the settlers and the Indians which gave it the name of "The dark and bloody ground."
Lincoln, the father of the President, was years old, his father (Abraham, the grandfather of the President) was shot and instantl}* killed by an Indian. The boy and his father were at work in the corn-field, near their log-cabin home. ]\Iordecai, the elder brother of He the lad, at work not far away, witnessed the attack. saw his father fall, and ran to the cabin, seized his readyloaded rifle and springing to the loop-hole cut through the logs, he saw the Indian, who had seized the boy, Raising his rifle and aiming at a carrying him away. silver medal, conspicuous on the breast of the Indian, he The Indian fell, and the lad, springing instantly fired. to his feet, ran to the open arms of his mother, at the
six
When Thomas
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cabin door.
ralK'
167
Amidst such scenes, the Lincohi faniil\- natuproduced rude, rough, liardy, and fearless men, famihar witli wood -craft men wlio could meet the extremes of exposure and fatigue, who knew how to find food and shelter in the forest; men of great powers of brave and self-reliant, true and faithful to endurance their friends and dangerous to their enemies. Men with minds to conceive and hands to execute bold enterprises.
;
—
It
is
a
is
curious
fact
that
the
grandfather,
Abraham
noted on the surveys of Daniel Hoone as having purchased, of the Government, fi\'e hundred acres of land. Thomas Lincoln, the' father, was also the purchaser of government land, and President Lincoln left, as a part
Lincoln,
of his estate, a quarter- section (one hundred and sixty acres), which he had received from the United States, for services rendered in earl)' life as a volunteer soldier, in the Black- Hawk Indian war. Thus for three generations the Lincoln famil)' were land-owners directly from the Gov-
ernment.
Such was the lineage and famil\' from which President Lincoln sprung. Such was the enx'ironmcnt in which his character was developed. He was born in a log-cabin, in Kentuck}-, on the 12th of February, 1809.
It will aid you in picturing to }'ourself this young man and his surroundings, to know that, from boyhood to the age of twenty-one, in winter his head was protected from the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or prairie-wolf, and that he often wore the buckskin breeches and hunting-shirt of the pioneer. He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and HerHad he appeared in England or Norculean strength. mandy, some centuries ago, he would have been the founder of some great Baronial famil\', possibly of a He could have wielded, with ease, the Royal dynasty. two-handed sword of Gu\', the great I^arl of Warwick, or the battle-axe of Richard of the Lion-heart.
HIS EDUCATION
AND TRAINING.
in
The world is naturall)' interested the education and training which
knowing what was
Lincoln
for
fitted
the
-A-
l68
great
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
work which he accompHshed. On the extreme the means of book-learning was very hmited. The common free schools, which now closely follow the heels of the pioneer and organized civil government, and prevail all over the United States, had not then reached An itinerant school-teacher wandered the Far -West. occasionally into a settlement, opened a private school
frontier,
for a few months, and, at such, Lincoln attended at differ-
ent times in
all
about twelve months.
His mother, who
was a woman of
practical good sense, of strong physical organization, of deep religious feeling, gentle and selfreliant, taught him to read and write.
Although she died when he was only nine years old, she had already laid deep the foundations of his excellence. Perfect truthfulness and integrity, love of justice, self-control, reverence for God, these constituted the solid These were all implanted and basis of his character.
carefully cultivated
by his mother, and he always spoke of her with the deepest respect and the most tender affec" All that 1 am, or hope to be," said he, when tion. President, *T owe to my sainted mother." He early manifested the most eager desire to learn, but there were no libraries, and few books in the back settlements in which he lived. Among the stray volumes, which he found in the possession of the illiterate families
by which he was surrounded, were yEsop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a life of Washington, the poems of Burns, and the Bible. To these his reading was confined, and he read them over and over again, until they became as familiar almost as the alphabet. His memory was marv^ellous, and I never yet met the man more familiar with the Bible than Abraham Lincoln. This was apparent in after-life, both from his conversation and writings, scarcely a speech or state paper of his in which illustrations and allusions from the Bible can not be found. While a young man, he made for himself, of coarse paper, a scrap-book, into which he copied everything which particularly pleased him. He found an old English grammar, which he studied by himself; and he formed, from his constant study of the Bible, that simple, plain, clear Anglo-Saxon style, so effective with the people. He
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
illustrated the
1
69
maxim
that
it
is
better to
know thoroughly
good books than to skim over man}'. When fifteen years old, he began (with a view of improving himself) to write on various subjects and to practise in making politiThese he made so amusing and cal and other speeches. attractive that his father had to forbid his making them in working-hours, for, said he, "when Abe begins to speak, His memory was so all the hands flock to hear him." retentive that he could repeat, verbatim, the sermons and political speeches which he heard. While his days were spent in hard manual labor, and his evenings in study, he grew up strong in body, healthful in mind, with no bad habits; no stain of intemperance, He used neither tobacco profanity, or vice of any kind. nor intoxicating drinks, and, thus living, he grew to be In all six feet four inches high, and a giant in strength. I have heard an old athletic sports he had no equal. comrade say, "he could strike the hardest blow with the woodman's axe, and the maul of the rail-splitter, jump higher, run faster than any of his fellows, and there were Kind none, far or near, who could lay him on his back." and cordial, he early developed so much wit and humor, such a capacity for narrative and story-telling, that he was everywhere a most welcome guest.
a few
A LAND SURVEYOR.
good practhe identical book from which, at eighteen years of age, he studied the art of surveying. By his skill and accuracy, and b\' the neatness of his work, he was sought after by the settlers, to survey and fix the boundaries of their farms, and in this way, in part, he earned a support while he studied
tical
Like Washington, he became,
surveyor, and
I
in early life, a
have, in
my
library,
law.
by
In 1837, self-taught, he was admitted and licensed, the Supreme Court of Illinois, to practise law.
A LAWYER.
difficult
for me to describe, and, perhaps, more you to conceive the contrast when Lincoln began to practise law, between the forms of the administration of justice in Westminster Hall, and in the rude
It
is
difficult
for
-^
170
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
I recall to-day what was said log court-houses of Illinois. a few years ago by an Illinois friend, when we visited, for the first time, Westminster Abbe)', and as we passed into " *' this is the Westminster Hall. This," he exclaimed, Here Fox, Burke, and forum in the world. grandest Sheridan hurled their denunciations against Warren HastHere Brougham defended Queen Caroline. And ings. this," he went on to repeat, in the words of Macauley, (words as familiar in America as here), "This is the great hall of William Rufus, tlie hall which has resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, and which has witnessed the trials of Bacon and Somers and "And yet," I replied, Strafford and Charles the First." *T have seen justice administered on the prairies of Illinois without pomp or ceremony, everything simple to rudeness, and yet, when Lincoln and Douglas led at that bar, I have seen justice administered by judges as pure, aided by advocates as eloquent, if not as learned, as any who ever presided, or plead, in Westminster Hall." The common-law of England (said to be the perfection of human wisdom) was administered in both forums, and the decisions of each tribunal were cited as authority in the other; both illustrating that reverence for, and obedience to, law, which is the glor}' of the English-speaking
race.
He sought to convince Lincoln was a great lawyer. rather by the application of principle than by the citation of authorities. On the whole, he was stronger with the I do not know that there has jury than with the court. ever been, in America, a greater or more successful advocate before a jury, on the right side, than Abraham Lincoln. He had a marvellous power of conciliating and impressing everyone in his favor. stranger entering the court, ignorant of the case, and listening a few moments to Lincoln, would find himself involuntarily on his side and wishing him success. He was a quick and accurate reader of character, and seemed to comprehend, almost intuitiv^el}-, the peculiarities of those with whom he came in contact. His manner was so candid, his methods so so anxious that truth and direct, so fair, he seemed justice should prevail, that everyone wished him success.
A
ABRAHAxM LINCOLN.
IJl
He
excelled
in
the statement of his case.
However com-
plicated, he would disentangle it, and present the important and turninj^- point in a way so clear that all could understand. Indeed, his statement often alone won his
cause,
The judges rendering argument unnecessary. would often stop him b)' saying, "If that is the case,
we will hear the other side." His ability in examining a witness, in bringing out clearly the important facts, was only surpassed b}' his
brother Lincoln,
skilful
ness to
He could often compel a witcross-examinations. tell the truth, where he meant to lie. He could
a jur\' laugh, and generalh' weep, at his pleasure. the right side, and when fraud or injustice were to be exposed, or innocence vindicated, he rose to the highest But he must range of eloquence, and was irresistable. have faith in his cause to bring out his full strength. His wit and humor, his quaint and homely illustrations, his inexhaustible stores of anecdote, alwa}'s to the point, added greatl}' to his power as a jur)'-advocate. He never misstated e\'idence or misrepresented his opponent's case, but met it fairly and squarely.
make
On
in active practice until his nomination, He was employed in iS6o, for the presidency. the leading cases in both the federal and state courts, and had a large clientelage, not only in Illinois, but was fre-
He
remained
in Ma}-,
quentU' called, on special retainers, to other States.
AN ILLINOLS POLITICL\N.
B)' his
life,
eloquence and popularit)* he became, earh'
in
the leader of the old \\ hig party, in Illinois. He served as member of the State Legislature, was the candate of his party for speaker, presidential elector, and United States senator, and was a member of the lower house of Congress.
SLAVERY.
When the independence of the American republic was established, African slaver}' was tolerated as a local and temporary institution. It was in conthct with the moral sense, the religious convictions of the people, and the political principles on which the government was founded.
But having been tolerated,
it
soon became an organized,
1/2
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
later, it became the master of the Conscious of its inherent weakness, it government. demanded and obtained additional territory for its expansion. First, the great Louisiana territory was purchased,, then Florida, and then Texas. By the repeal, in 1854, of the prohibition of slavery north of the line of 36°, 30' of latitude (known in America as the "Missouri Compromise"), the slavery question became the leading one in American politics, and the absorbing and exciting topic of discussion. It shattered into fragments the old conservative Whig party, with It divided which Mr. Lincoln had, theretofore, acted. the Democratic party, and new parties were organized upon issues growing directly out of the question of slavery.
aggressive power, and,
The leader of that portion of the Democratic party which continued, for a time, to act with the slavery party, was Stephen Arnold Douglas, then representing Illinois in the United States Senate. He was a bold, ambitious, able man, and had, thus far, been uniformly successful. He had introduced and carried through Congress, against the most vehement opposition, the repeal of the law, prohibiting slavery, called the Missouri
Compromise.
THE CONTEST BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. The issue having been now distinctly made between
freedom and the extension of slavery into the territories, Lincoln and Douglas, the leaders of the Free-soil and Democratic parties, became more than ever antagonized. The conflict between freedom and slavery now became earnest, fierce, and violent, beyond all previous political controversies, and from this time on, Lincoln plead the cause of liberty with an energy, ability, and eloquence,, which rapidly gained for him a national reputation. From this time on, through the tremendous struggle, it .was he who grasped the helm and led his party to victory. Conscious of a great cause, inspired by a generous love of liberty, and animated by the moral sublimity of his great theme, he proclaimed his determination, ever thereafter,, "to speak for freedom, and against slavery, until everywhere the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the wind
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN'.
1
73
blow upon no man who goes forth
to unrequited toil."
THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DERATE.
The
1858,
i^reat
debate between
Lincohi and
Doughis,
in
was, unquestionably, botli with reference to the abiht)' of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and I do events, the most important in American history. not think I do injustice to others, nor over-estimate their importance, when I say that the speeches of Lincohi pubhshed, circuLated, and read, throughout the Free-States, did more than an}- other agency in creating the pubhc opinion, which prepared the way for the overthrow of The speeches of John Ouincy Adams, and those slavery. of Senator Sumner, were more learned and scholarly, and those of Lovejoy and Wendel Philips were more
vehement and impassioned; Senators Seward, Chase, and Hale spoke from a more conspicuous forum, but Lincoln's speeches were as philosophic, as able, as earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of illustration, and his language a plainness, a vigor, an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted, than any other, to reach and influence the understanding and sentiment
of the common people. At the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. Douglas had had a long training and experience as a popular speaker. On the hustings (stump, as we say in America) and in Congress, and- especially in the United States Senate, he had been accustomed to meet the ablest debaters of his State and of the Nation. His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a whole His manner was bold, party, had he been discomfited.
He was ready, fertile in vigorous, and aggressive. resources, familiar with political history, strong and severe in denunciation, and he handled, with skill, all the weapons of the dialectician. His iron will, tireless energy, united with physical and moral courage, and great personal magnetism, made him a natural leader, and gave
him personal popularity.
174
-^
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
Lincoln was also now a thoroughly trained speaker. contended successfully at the bar, in the legislature, and before the people, with the ablest men of the West, including Douglas, with whom he always rather sought than avoided a discussion. But he was a courteous and generous opponent, as is illustrated by the following beautiful allusion to his rival, made in 1856, in one of
He had
their joint debates.
"Twenty years ago. Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted we were both young then he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both am;
;
With me, the I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With him, it has race of ambition has been a flat failure. been a splendid success. His name fills the Nation, and in foreign lands. I affect no conit is not unknown for the high eminence he has reached; so reached, tempt that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a
bitious,
monarch's brow." We know, and the world knows, that Lincoln did reach that high, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach it in such a way that the "oppressed" did share with him
in the elevation.
Such were the champions who, in 1858, were to discuss, before the voters of Illinois, and with the whole Nation as spectators, the political questions then pending, and especIt was not a ially the vital questions relating to slavery. single combat, but extended through a whole campaign. On the return of Douglas, from Washington, to Illinois, in July, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas being candidates for the senate, the former challenged his rival to a series of joint debates, to be held at the principal towns in the
The challenge was accepted, and it was agreed State. that each discussion should occupy three hours, that the speakers should alternate in the opening and the close the opening speech to occupy one hour, the reply one hour and a-half, and the close half an hour. The meetings were held in the open air, for no hall could hold the vast crowds which attended. In addition to the immense mass of hearers, reporters, from all the principal newspapers in the country, attended,
—
ABRAHAM LIXCQLX.
1
75
SO that the morning after each debate, the speeches were pubhshed, and eagerl}- read b)- a large part, perhaps a majority of all the voters of the United States. The attention of the American people was thus arrested, and the}' watched with intense interest, and devoured every argument of the champions. Each of these great men, I doubt not, at that time, Douglas' ardor, while in sincerely believed he was right. such a conflict, would make him think, for the time being, he was right, and I kmnv that Lincoln argued for freedom against the extension of sla\'er}' with the most profound conviction that on the result hung the fate of his country. Lincoln had two adxantages over Douglas; he had the He was best side of the question, and the best temper.
tration, while
irritable.
always good-humored, always had an apt stor)- iox illusDouglas sometimes, when hard pressed, was
Douglas carried awa}- the most popular applause, but Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate ad captandtuu triumph, while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln's friends urged him to raise a storm of applause (which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories), he refused, saying the *T do not occasion was too serious, the issue too grave. seek applause," said he, "nor to amuse the people, I want to convince them."
It was often observed, during this canvass, that while Douglas was sometimes greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed, the people seemed solemn and serious, and could be heard, all through the crowd, gravel)' and anxiously discussing the topics on which he had been
speaking.
Douglas secured the immediate object of the struggle, but the manl}' bearing, the vigorous logic, the honest)' and sincerit)', the great intellectual powers, exhibited b)- Mr. Lincoln, prepared the wa)', and, two years later, secured his nomination and election to the presidency. It is a touching incident, illustrating the patriotism of both these statesmen, that, widel)- as tlic)' differed, and keen as hai.1 been their rivalr)', just as soon as the life of the Republic
176
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
to shield
was menaced, by treason, they joined hands,
and
save the county they loved. The echo and the prophecy of this great debate was heard, and inspired hope in the far-off cotton and ricefields of the South The toiling blacks, to use the words of Whittier, began hopefully to pray:
"
We
pray de Lord.
He
gib us signs
Dat some day we be free. De Norf wind tell it to de pines, De wild duck to de sea.
"
We
De
tink
it
when de
it
We
church-bell ring,
dream
in
de dream,
sing,
"
rice-bird
mean it when he De eagle when he scream.
THE COOPER-INSTITUTE SPEECH.
In February, i860, Mr. Lincoln was called to address the people of New York, and, speaking to a vast audience, at the Cooper Institute (the Exeter Hall of the United States), the poet Bryant presiding, he made, perhaps, the most learned, logical, and exhaustive speech to be found
in American anti-slavery literature. The question was, the power of the National Government to exclude slavery from the territories. The orator from the prairies, the
after this speech, awoke to find himself famous. closed with these words, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end,
morning
He
as we understand it." This address was the carefully finished product of, not an orator and statesman only, but also of an accurate student of American history. It confirmed and elevated the reputation he had already acquired in the Douglas debates, and caused his nomination and election to the
do our duty
presidency.
If
time permitted,
I
would
like to follow
Mr. Lincoln,
by step, to enumerate his measures one after another,, until, by prudence and courage, and matchless statesstep
final
manship, he led the loyal people of the republic to the and complete overthrow of slavery and the restoration of the Union. From the time he left his humble home, in Illinois, to assume the responsibilities of power, the political horizon
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
black
clouds,
1/7
with treason and rebellion, the terrific thunder the tempest which had been ijatherini; and j^rowmore black and threatening for years, now ready to ini^ on and on, throui^h lon;^ years of bloody war, explode, what a drama! down to his final triumph and death His eventful life terminated b}' his tragic death, has it not the dramatic unities, and the awful ending, of the Old
— —
—
Greek tragedy?
TTIS
I
FAREWELL TO
HIS NEIGHBORS.
scene
know of nothing, in history, more pathetic than the when he bade good-bye to his old friends and
Conscious of the difficulties and dangers neighbors. before him, difficulties which seemed almost insurmountable, with a sadness as though a presentiment that he should return no more was pressing upon him, but with a deep religious trust which was characteristic, on the platform of the rail-carriage, which was to bear him away to the Capital, he pauseci and said, "No one can realize Here I hav^e lived more the sadness I feel at this parting. Here m\' children were born, than a quarter of a centur}-. and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I I shall see you again. go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man since He never would have sucthe days of Washington. ceeded but for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which,
" * I at all times, he relied. hope you, my dear friends, will all pra\' that I ma\' receive that Divine assistance, without which I can not succeed, but with
'"
which, success
is
certain."
And
to
waved his hand in farewell to the old home, which he was never to return, he heard the response
as he
from many old friends, "God bless and keep you." "God His neighbors "sorrowing protect you from all traitors." most of all," for the fear "that they should see his face no
more."
HIS INAL'CiL'RAL
AND
AI'l'LAL
FOR PEACE.
In his inaugural address, spoken in the open air, and from the eastern portico of the capitol, and heard by thrice ten thousand people, on the ver}^ verge of ci\il war,
178
EARLY ILLINOIS
he made a most earnest appeal for peace. He gave the most solemn assurance, that "the property, peace, and security of no portion of the Repubhc should be endangered by his administration." But he declared, with firmness that the union of the States must be "perpetual," and that he should "execute the laws faithfully in every "In doing this," said he, "there need be no bloodstate." shed nor violence, nor shall there be, unless forced upon the In regard to the difficulties which National Authority." thus divided the people, he appealed to all to abstain from precipitate action, assuring them that intelligence, patriotism, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken the Republic, "were competent to adjust, in the best way, all existing troubles." His closing appeal, against civil war, was most touching. "In your hands," said he, and his voice, for the first time faltered, "In your hands, and not in mine, are the ^ " momentous issues of civil war." "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." ^ '^ "I am," continued he, "loth to close, we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies, though passion may strain, it must not break the bonds
—
of affection."
The answer to these appeals was the attack upon Fort Sumpter, and immediately broke loose all the maddening passions which riot in blood and carnage and civil war. I know not how I can better picture and illustrate the condition of affairs, and of public feeling, at that time, than bv narrating; two or three incidents.
DOUGLAS' PROPHECY, JANUARY
I,
1861.
In January, 1861, Senator Douglas, then lately a candidate for the presidency, with Mrs. Douglas, one of the most beautiful and fascinating women in America, a relative of Mrs. Madison, occupied, at Washington, one of the most magnificent blocks of dwellings, called the "Minnesota Block." On New-Year's-day, 1861, General Charles Stewart, of New York, from whose lips I write an account of the incident, says, "I was making a New-Year's-call on Senator Douglas;
after
some conversation,
I
asked him,
A13KAHAM LIN'COLN.
"
1
79
will be the result, Senator, of the efforts of Davis, and his associates, to divide the Union?' Jefferson were," said Stewart, "sitting on the sofa together, when I asked the question. Douglas rose, walked rapidly up and down the room for a moment, and then pausing,
'What
We
he exclaimed, with deep feeling and excitement: "'The Cotton States are making an effort to draw the Border States, to their schemes of Secession, and
in
I
but too fearful they will succeed. If they do, there Will be the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen,
lasting for years.' "Pausing a moment,
am
he looked like one inspired, while he proceeded: 'X'irginia, over yonder, across the Potomac,' pointing toward Arlington, 'will become a charnel-house but in the end the Union will triumph. They will tr}',' he continued, 'to get possession of this Capital, to give them prestige abroad, but in that effort the}- will never But succeed; the North will rise eii masse to defend it. Washington will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used for the sick and wounded. This house,' he continued, 'the Minnesota Block will be devoted to that purpose before the end of the war.' all the "Every word he said was literally fulfilled churches nearly were used for the wounded, and the Minnesota IMock, and the very room in which .this, declaration was made, became the 'Douglas Hospital.'
—
—
"'What
"
justification for all this.^' said Stewart.
is
no justification,' replied Douglas. go as far as the constitution will permit to maintain their just rights, l^ut,' said he, rising upon his feet and raising his arm, 'if the Southern States attempt
'There
will
"'I
to secede,
I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, and just so much slave territory, as they can hold " at the point of the bayonet, and no more.'
WILL THE NORTH FKHIT
.^
Many Southern leaders believed there would be no serious war, and labored industriously to impress this idea on the Southern people. Benjamin F. l^utler, who, as a delegate from Massachusetts, to the Charlestown Convention, had voted many
l80
,
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
times for Breckenridge, the extreme Southern candidate for president, came to Washington, in the winter of 1 860-1, to inquire of his old associates what they meant by their
threats.
a *'We mean," rephed they, "we mean Separation Southern Confederacy. We will have our independence, with no discordant elements." a Southern government ''Are you prepared for war.'" said Butler, coolly. "Oh, there will be no war; the North won't fight." "The North zci// fight," said Butler, "the North will send the /ast man and expend the last dollar to maintain the Government." "But," replied Butler's Southern friends, "the North we have too many allies there." can't fight "You have friends," responded Butler, "in the North, who will stand by you so long as you fight your battles in the Union, but the moment you fire on the flag, the North will be a unit against you." "And," Butler continued, "you may be assured if war comes, slavery oidsT
—
—
—
THE SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS,
JULY,
1
86 1.
On
the brink of this
civil
war, the President
summoned
Congress to meet on the 4th of July, 1861, the anniverSeven States had already sary of our Independence. seceded, were in open revolt, and the chairs of their repreIt sentatives, in both houses of Congress, were vacant. needed but a glance at these so numerous vacant seats to
realize the extent of the defection, the gravity of the situation,
and the magnitude of the impending struggle. Some in the old pro-slaver\* leaders were absent. rebel government, set up at Richmond, and others marHostile armies were gathershalling troops in the field. ing, and from the dome of the Capitol, across the Potomac, and on toward Fairfax, in Virginia, could be seen
The
the Confederate
flag.
Breckenridge, late the Southern candidate for president, now Senator from Kentucky, and soon to lead a rebel army, still lingered in the Senate. Like Cataline among the Roman Senators, he was regarded with aversion and distrust. Gloomy and, perhaps, sorrowful, he said, "I can
51
ABRAIIAxM LINCOLN.
l8l
Roman senator had risen, if, after the battle of Cannai, a amidst the conscript Fathers, and denounced the war, and opposed all measures for its success." Baker paused, and every eye in the Senate, and in the crowded galleries was fixed upon the almost solitary senaFessenden broke the painful silence, tor from Kentucky. by exclaiming, in low deep tones, which gave expression to the thrill of indignation, which ran through the hall, "He would hav^e been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock." Congress manifested its sense of the gravity of the situation by authorizing a loan of two hundred and fift}" millions of dollars, and empowering the President to call into the field five hundred thousand men, and as many more as he might deem necessary.
SURRENDER OF MASON AND SLIDELL.
only look with sadness on the melancholy drama that is being enacted." Pardon the digression, while I relate an incident which occurred in the Senate, at this special session. Senator Baker, of Oregon, was making a brilliant and impassioned reply to a speech of Ikeckenridge, in which he denounced the Kentucky senator, for giving aid and encouragement to the enemy, by his speeches. At length he paused, and, turning toward I^reckenridgc, and fixing his eye upon him, he asked, "What would have been thought
Government, since the "stamp act" of the Revolution, has ever excited such intense feeling of hostility toward Great Britain, as her haughty demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell. It required nerve, in the President, to stem the storm of
popular feeling, and yield to that demand, and it was, for a time, the most unpopular act of his administration. But when the excitement of the day had passed, it was approved by the sober judgment of the Nation. Prince Albert is kindly and gratefully remembered in America, where it is believ^ed that his action, in modifying the terms of that demand, probably saved the United States and Great Britain from the horrors of war.
13
No
act of the British
\
182
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
When in June, 1858, at his home, in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln startled the people with the declaration, "This government can not endure, permanently, half slave and half free," and when, at the close of his speech, to those who were laboring for the ultimate extinction of slavery, he exclaimed, with the voice of a prophet, "We shall not Wise councils may fail, if we stand firm, we shall not fail. accelerate, or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come;" he anticipated success, through
years of discussion, and
final triumph through peaceful and constitutional means by the ballot. He did not forthose dim mysterious see, nor even dream (unless in shadows, which sometimes startle by half revealing the
own elevation to the presidency. He did not then suspect that he had been appointed by God, and should be chosen by the people, to proclaim the emanciHe did not forpation of a race, and to save his country. see that slavery was so soon to be destroyed, amidst the flames of war which itself kindled.
future), his
HIS MODERATION.
He entered upon his administration with the single purpose of maintaining national unity, and many reproached and denounced him for the slowness of his anti-slavery measures. The first of the series was the abolition of slavery at the National Capitol. This act gave freedom to three thousand slaves, with compensation to their loyal masters. Contemporanious with this was an act conferring freedom upon all colored soldiers who should serve The next in the Union armies and upon their families. was an act, which I had the honor to introduce, prohibiting slavery in all the territories, and wherever the National Government had jurisdiction. But the great, the decisive act of his administration, was the "Emancipation Proclamation."
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
The President had urged, with the utmost earnestness, on the loyal slave-holders, of the Border States, gradual
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
saw,
183
and compensated emancipation, but in vain. He clearly all saw, that the slaves, as used by the confederates, were a vast power, contributing^ immensely to their ability to carry on the war, and, that by declaring their freedom, he woulci convert millions of freedmen into active friends and allies of the Union. The people knew that he was
deliberating upon the question of issuing this Emancipation Proclamation. At this crisis, the Union men of the Border States made an appeal to him to withhold the edict, and suffer slavery to survive. They selected John J. Crittenden, a venerable and eloquent man, and their ablest statesman, to make, on the floor of Congress, a public appeal to the President, to withhold the proclamation. Mr. Crittenden had been governor of Kentucky, her senator in Congress, attorney-
general of the United States, and now, in his old age, covered with honors, he accepted, like John Ouincy Adams, a seat in Congress, that in this crisis he might help to save his country. He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to disturb slavery. In his speech, he made a most eloquent and touching appeal, from a Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. He said, among other things, "There is a niche, near to that of Washington, to him who shall save his country. If Mr. Lincoln will step into that niche, the founder and the preserver of the Republic shall stand side by side." * "^ Owen Lovejoy, the brother of Elijah P. Lovejoy,
who had been mobbed and murdered, because he would not surrender the liberty of the press, replied to
Crittenden.
After his brother's murder, kneeling upon the sod which covered that brother's grave, he had taken green a solemn vow, of eternal war upon slavery. Ever after, like Peter the Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of lightning, he had gone forth, preaching his crusade
At length, in his reph', turning to Critagainst slavery. tenden, he said, "The gentleman, from Kentucky, says he has a niche for Abraham Lincoln, where is it.-*" Crittenden pointed toward Heaven.
said, "He points upward, but, sir! the President follows the counsel of that gentleman, and becomes the perpetuator of slaver}', he should point
Lovejoy continuing
if
184
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
dozumuard, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds on human blood, and where are forged chains
is
human limbs; in the recesses of whose temple woman scourged and man tortured, and outside the walls are lying dogs, gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes them, lying around the walls of Stambool." "That," said
for
would perpetuate
but
it
Lov^ejoy, "is a suitable place for the statue of him who slavery." *T, too," said he, "have a temple for Abraham Lincoln,
is
in
freedom's holy fane,
slave fetters
^
""
not sur-
^ accursed tree." "It is said," continued the judgment seat with dred thousand slaves!
rounded by of freedom not dark with bondage, but radiant with the In that niche he shall stand proudly, light of liberty. nobly, gloriously, with broken chains and slave's whips ^ ^ That is a fame worth livbeneath his feet. it is a fame worth ing for, aye, more, dying for, though that death led through Gethsemene and the agony of the
—
and chains, but with the symbols
^
-h-
he, "that Wilberforce went up to the broken chains of eight hunLet Lincoln make himself the Liberator, and his name shall be enrolled, not only in this earthly temple, but it shall be traced on the living stones of that temple which is reared amid the thrones of
Heaven."
Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled in this world you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his in that other world feet, rising all over the world, and few will doubt that the prophecy has been realized. In September, 1862, after the Confederates, by their defeat at the great battle of Antietam, had been driven back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the Proclamation. It is a fact, illustrating his character, and that there was in him what many would call a showing
—
—
— —
tinge of superstition, that he declared, to Secretary Chase, that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, "if General Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown the result with the declaration of I^REEDOM TO THE Slave." The final Proclamation was issued on the first of January, 1863. In obedience to an American custom, he had been receiving calls on that New-Year's-day, and,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
for liours, shakin<^ hands.
1
85
As
the paper was brought to
him by the Secretary of
"iNIr.
Seward,
is
it
I
liave
to be signed, he said, been shaking liands all day, and my
State,
almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets will be for this act, and my whole soul is in If m\' hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, it. those who examine the document hereafter, will say, "he
right hand into history,
hesitated."
Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote Abra/iam. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, Lincoln. he
triumph, the tide of victory in favor of the Union cause. The capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Chicamauga, Lookout-IMountain, Missionary Ridge, Sheridan's brilliant campaign in the Valley of the Shenandoah; Thomas' decisive victory at Nashville; Sherman's march, through the Confederacy, to the sea; the capture of Fort McAllister; the sinking of tJic Alabama; the taking of Mobile, by Farragut; the occupation of Columbus, Charlestown, Savannah; the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the taking of Jefferson Davis a prisoner; the triumph everywhere of the National Arms; such were the events which followed (though with delays and bloodshed) the "Proclamation of Emancipation."
From
said, "that will do." this day, to its final
seemed to
set
more and more
THE AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.
Meanwhile Lincoln had been triumphantly reelected, Congress had, as before stated, abolished slavery at the
Capital, prohibited negro soldiers in the
slavery,
it
in
all
the territories, declared
all
Union armies, and
their families free,
and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized and the President had crowned and consummated
One thing all, by the proclamation of emancipation. alone remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly permanent these measures, and this was to embody in the Constitution itself, the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the Republic. To change the organic law, rcc^uired the adoption by a
^
1
86
EARLY
should be submitted
ILLINOIS.
two-thirds' vote of a joint resolution,
this
to,
and
ratified
by Congress, and that by two-thirds of
the States.
The President, in his annual message and in personal interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage of such resolution. To test the strength of the measure, in the House of Representatives, I had the honor, in February, 1864, to introduce the following resolution: ''Resolved, That the Constitution should be so amended as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof This was adopted, forever" (Cong. Globe, vol. 50, p. 659). a decided vote, and was the first resolution ever passed by by Congress in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. But, although it received a majority, it did not receive a majority of two-thirds. The debates on the Constitutional Amendment (perhaps the greatest in our Congressional history, certainly the most important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran through two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the learned senator from Massachusetts, brought to the discussion, in the Senate, his ample stores of historical illustration, quoting largely in its favor from the historians, poets, and statesmen of the past. The resolution was adopted in the Senate by the large vote of ayes, 38, noes, 6. In the lower House, at the first session, it failed to obtain a two-thirds' vote, and, on a motion to reconsider, went over to the next session.
Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and, in a letter to Illinois friends, he said, "The signs look better. * * Peace does not look so distant as it did. I
to
hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as be worth keeping in all future time." I recall, very vividly, my New-Year's-call upon the
I said: President, January, 1864. "I hope, Mr. President, one year from to-day I may have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occurrence of three events which now seem probable." "What are they.^" inquired he. "i. That the rebellion may be entirely crushed.
ABRAHAM LINXOLN.
"2.
1
8/
That the Constitutional Amendment, abolishing and
prohibiting slavery, may have been adopted. "3. And that Abraham Lincoln may have been reelected President." "I think," replied he, with a smile, "I would be glad to accept the first two as a compromise." General Grant, in a letter, remarkable for that clear
good-sense and practical judgment for which he is distinguished, condensed into a single sentence the political
argument in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, "The North and South," said he, "can never live at peace with each other except as one nation and that zuithoiit slavery^
GARFIELD'S SPEECH.
I would be glad to quote from this great debate, but must confine myself to a brief extract from the speech
of the present President, then a member of the House. He began by saying, "Mr. Speaker, we shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic, and in this
Hall, until
is
we know why
""
sin outlives disaster
immortal."
^
"How
well
do
I
and Satan remember,"
he continued, "the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, JosJina R. Giddings, lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life in his hands and, in the name of justice, protested against
the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle of freedom raged fiercest."
'"
"^^
"In its mad arrogance, slavery lifted its hand against the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth." Up to the last roll-call, on the question of the passage of the resolution, we were uncertain and anxious about We needed Democratic votes. We knew we the result. should get some, but whether enough to carry the measure none could surely tell. As the clerk called the names of members, so perfect was the silence that the sound of a hundred pencils keeping tally could be heard through the Hall. Finally, when the call was completed, and the speaker announced that the resolution was adopted, the result was
-^
1
88
EARLY
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Memreceived by an uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm. bers and spectators (especially the galleries, which were crowded with convalescent soldiers) shouted and cheered, and, before the speaker could obtain quiet, the roar of artillery on Capitol Hill proclaimed to the City of Washington, the passage of the resolution. Congress adjourned, and we hastened to the White House to" congratulate the President on the event. He made one of his happiest speeches. In his own '' "I TJie great job is finishcdr peculiar words, he said,
can not but congratulate," said he, "all present, myself, the country, and the whole world on this great moral
victory."
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
And now, with an attempt to sketch very briefly some of his peculiar personal characteristics, I must close. This great Hercules of a man had a heart as kind and Sterner men thought it a weaktender as a woman. It saddened him to see others suffer, and he shrunk ness.
from
inflicting pain.
Let
me
illustrate his
kindness and
day,
tenderness
by one
or two incidents.
One summer's
walking along the shaded path leading from the Executive-mansion to the War-oflice, I saw the tall awkward form of the President seated on the grass under a tree. wounded soldier, seeking back-pay and a pension, had met the President, and, having recognized him, asked his Lincoln sat down, examined the papers of the counsel. soldier, and told him what to do, sent him to the proper Bureau with a note, which secured prompt attention. After the terribly destructive battles between Grant and Lee, in the Wilderness of Virginia, after days of dreadful slaughter, the lines of ambulances, conveying the wounded from the steamers on the Potomac to the great field hospitals on the heights around Washington, would be one unbroken line from the wharf to the continuous, At such a time, I have seen the President, in hospital. his carriage, driving slowly along the line, and he looked like one who had lost the dearest members of his own On one such occasion, meeting me, he stopped family. and said, "I can not bear this; this suffering, this loss of
A
—
life
—
is
dreadful."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
I
1
89
from a letter he had years whose great sorrow he had Reminding him of the incident, I sought to console. asked him, "Do you remember writing to your suffering
recalled
to
him a
line
before written
to
a friend,
friend these words:
''A fid
tJiis
too s Jtail
pass aiuay,
Never fear.
In
all
Victory will
comer
and speeches during these years of strife and passion, there can be found no words of When others railed, he railed bitterness, no denunciation. He was always dignified, magnanimous, not again. His duty was ever patient, considerate, manl}% and true. " with malice toward none, with charity for performed all," and with "firmness in the right as God givx-s us to
his State papers
see the right."
NEVER A DEMAGOGUE.
He respected and Lincoln was never a demagogue. loved the people, but never flattered them. No man ever heard him allude to his humble life and manual labor, in a way to obtain votes. None knew better than he, that splitting rails did not qualify a man for public duties. He realized painfully the defects of his education, and labored diligently and successfully to supply his deficiencies.
HIS CONVERSATION.
His conno equal as a talker in social life. versation was fascinating and attractive. He was full of wit, humor, and anecdote, and, at the same time, original, There was in his character a suggestive, and instructive. While singular mingling of mirthfulness and melanchol)'. his sense of the ludicrous was keen, and his fun and mirth were exuberent, and sometimes almost irrepressible; his conversation sparkling with jest, story, and anecdote and in droll description, he would pass suddenly to another a melancholy exmood, and become sad and pathetic " a of his homely face would show that he was pression man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"
He had
—
190
EARLY
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HIS STORIES.
The newspapers,
lous.
in
Lincoln's stories and anecdotes,
America, have ahvays beeri full of some true and many fabu-
always had a story ready, and, if not, he could The followimprovise one, just fitted for the occasion. ing may, I think, be said to have been adapted: An Atlantic port, in one of the British provinces, was, during the war, a great resort and refuge for blockaderunners, and a large contraband trade was said to have been carried on from that port with the Confederates. Late in the summer of 1864, while the election of president was pending, Lincoln being a candidate, the Governor-General of that province, with some of the principal
officers,
He
visited
respects to the executive.
Washington, and called to pay their Mr. Lincoln had been very
the failure of these officials to enforce, the rules of neutrality, but he treated his After a pleasant interview, guests with great courtesy. the Governor, alluding to the approaching presidential election, said, jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm, 'T understand, Mr. President, everybody votes in this coun-
much annoyed by
strictly,
very
try.
If we remain until November can we vote.''" **You remind me," replied the President, "of a countryman of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived in New York on election day, and was, perhaps, as eager as Your Excellency, to vote, and to vote early and late and often. So, upon his landing at Castle Garden, he hastened to the nearest voting place, and, as he approached, the judge, who received the ballots, inquired, 'who do you want to vote for.^ on which side are you.-^' Poor Pat was embarrassed, he did not know who were the He stopped, scratched his head, then, with candidates. the readiness of his countrymen, he said: Tell me, if I am foment the Government, anyhow. Honor plases, \yhich is the rebellion side, and I'll tell your you how I want to vote. In Ould Ireland, I was always on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, I'll stick to that same in America.' **Your Excellency," said Mr. Lincoln, "would, I should think, not be at all at a loss on which side to vote.''"
**
'
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
THE BOOKS HE READ.
The two books he
I9I
read most were the Bible and ShakeWith them he was famihar, readini\ The chances may be fearful, but nevertheless, there is hope, and history is filled with instances of the successful achievements of a forlorn hope. But in November last, what a spectacle was presented! One million five hundred thousand freemen, with an unfailing constancy, a devotion and a heroic fidelity to their cause, marched up to the polls and voted for Stephen A. Douglas! Their cause was in as desperate a strait as ever
—
202
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
;
was that of a defeated army they knew they were marked men; they were conspicuously adorned for the shots of the enemy, yet they hesitated not, they faltered not, nor were they dismayed. They were forlorn, but they could not call themselves a forlorn hope, for they had no hope; An active enemy in front, a all was lost, all was gone. base and treacherous foe in the rear; nevertheless, with bayonets fixed, shoulder to shoulder, and with locked step, in solid column, and with rapid stride, they marched boldly That was devotion to be proud of, to the last encounter! and the noble leader, whose courage had led him personally into the very recesses of the enemy's camp, felt prouder of these million and half of unbought votes, given for him by men who knew he had not and would not have offices or rewards to bestow, than if he had been elected by the exertions of those who were confident of favors from him. Since Clay, no American ever had such hosts of devoted personal friends, ever had such multitudes follow him beIn the consciousness of cause they loved him personally. this popular affection, Mr. Douglas found ample compenAnd it was his boast and his sation for his public labors. pride, that he. had never, by precept or example, taught any of his countrymen to refuse to honor and to follow the flag of his country, or to resist, oppose, and defy the laws and Constitution of the Union. So strong was this honorable pride, so ever-present was the gratifying thought, that even in his dying hours, rousing temporarily from the delirium of fever, he gave that memorable message to his
children:
"Tell them to Love and Obey the Constitution OF THE United States." His AmeriI have said Mr. Douglas was an American.
canism was of a peculiar nature. Long before he entered Congress, during the political controversies of i84i-'42, he laid down as a fact which he hoped to see demonstrated in recorded history, that North America was not too large
for this American republic, that the American flag could cover but one nation, and that nation should extend from the extreme north to the lowest waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Twenty years ago, he declared in Congress that there was not room enough on this continent for another government either republican or monarchical, and at the
—
STEPHEN
A.
DOUGLAS.
203
hour of his death, this nation, with the gov^ernment in tlie hands of men who had sneered at his doctrine, and st}'led his pohcy as dema^^ogism, was about to tr\', by the ordeal of battle, whether the national ensign could be kept extended over our present existing limits, or a banner with I can not a strange device, planted over half the republic.
do him greater
justice than to quote his own clear and "It therefore, becomes us to put this forcible language: nation in a state of defence; and when we are told that
I have to say is this: violate no treaty stipulations, nor any principle of the law of nations; preserve the national honor and integrity of the country; but, at the same time, assert our right to the last inch, and then, if war comes, let it come. may regret the neces-
this will lead to war, all
We
sity
but when it does come, I would administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity, and not terminate it until the question was settled
which produced
it,
forever." That was his language twenty years ago, and yet there are those who affect to believe that Stephen A. Douglas did not become a patriot until after he had lost It is true that this was said all hope of Southern support. respecting anticipated trouble with a foreign foe, but the language is perfectly applicable to a domestic enemy. He had more respect for, and could recognize and admit a degree of honor on the part of a foreign enemy, that he His memorable could not concede to a domestic one.
words that in civil war there can be no neutrals we must be patriots or traitors will serve to show his estimate of those who dare to violate the Constitution of the United States. But that was not all he said. In almost prophetic language, he then described a case which is now before the He declared that he would never country for decision. consent that rival petty republics should grow up on our border, engendering jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's domestic affairs, and continuall}' en-
—
—
—
dangering the i^oace of
all. And the reason given for this was, that the establishment of a new republic on this continent would at once excite a jealousy toward our own, and as that new republic must natural \' be the weaker, it would seek European alliances, and these alliances would.
I
204
of course,
EARLY
make
this rival
ILLINOIS.
an instrument
in the
hands of
British power, through which to assail our interests. ocean-bound republic, with the whole continent under one flag, was the favorite project of his early statesmanship,
lived just long enough to see the commencement of an attempt, by the very men who repudiated his policy, which, if successful, will see the Union split into as many governments as there are States, and each of them a prey to the avarice or intrigues of despotism abroad.
An
and he
Time
will
not permit, nor
is
this altogether
an appro-
upon the many and varied national matters in which Mr. Douglas took an active part. For twenty years he was a leading man in the politics of the country. During that time he has borne a conspicuous His name has been blended with the legislative hispart. tory of his country, and in all the branches of its progress.
priate occasion to dwell
The debates of Congress are an imperishable monument to his industry, his sagacity, and his love of country. The great act of legislation upon which his opponents have assailed him most fiercely, and which, even after death, has been quoted as "the great mistake, not to say crime" of
his
life, was the one in which he took the most pride, and which he felt to be the wisest and the best. It was the Nebraska Act. defence of that act is not needed here, but as it served for years as a battery from which he was assailed, it is but proper that in a few sentences it be stated why he proposed it, why he pressed it, and why it failed. Mr. Douglas was one of those who saw that the agita-
A
tion of the slavery question in Congress could accomplish nothing, save to widen the social and political breach that
has always existed between the slaveholding and nonSeven years experience in Congress slavehoiding States. confirmed him in the opinion that it was necessary toremove that question from the halls of the national legisIn 1850, the compromise bills of that year, of lature. which he wrote every word, were passed. California had been acquired, and a road to the Pacific was indispensable. In 1854, the immense tract of territory, now known as
Nebraska and Kansas, was closed, by law, to emigration and to travel. Like a huge block, it barred the natural pathway to the Pacific. The South was pressing a railroad
STEPHEN
A.
DOUflLAS.
205
from Memphis, and south-westerly across the continent. ]\Ir. Douglas wanted a fair chance to have that railroad lead from the north, where it could find communication through Chicago to the Atlantic. Our railroads had already reached the Mississippi, and others were projected, extending to the Missouri. Me wanted Nebraska and Kansas opened, and the country made free to the enterIn case of a dissolution of the Union, have the Pacific connected by some other route than one through a hostile section. That was the motive for organizing these territories a motive having its origin in the desire to benefit the whole nation, and especially to give to the northwest a fair o])portunity to
prise of the north. to it was essential
—
compete for the commerce of the great east. But that curse of all things, the question of African He could not open Kansas slavery, la}' at the threshold. and Nebraska without waking the sleeping Demon. He therefore determined to make one grand struggle, to seize the monster, to invite both North and South to unite in chaining it; and, having it in chains, to remove it forever beyond the limits of national legislation. For that purpose he framed the Nebraska Act, by which he asked the North and the South forever to bind themselves to leave
the question of the existence or non-existence of slavery to the exclusive adjudication and determination of the people of the respective territories. The bill passed, and became a law. Its design and intent plainly stamped upon its face, and its friends all committed to abide its results. He had accomplished all his purposes, so far as they could be done by legislation. The rest he left to time and to the intelligence of the people; and throughout the ev^entful years that followed he was not an indifterent but a confident spectator, waiting for results which every day
seemed more inevitably rebellion in Kansas, and
certain.
For two years he fought
offered to Lincoln In 1856, the Cinresistance to the laws and Constitution. He was but little troubled as to cinnati convention met.
—
to Pierce he offered just what he his aid in suppressing rebellion, and
who
lest
should be the nominee, but he was greatly agitated some portion of the South would not ratify and approve the great act of 1854. But that convention, with-
'-V
206
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
out a dissenting voice, did ratify that act, and then from the very bottom of his heart he rejoiced. Tlie chain which
forever had been riveted, and the terriwere no longer to be divided by a black line, but freedom was as free to go to the lowest confines of the continent as it was to tread the ocean-washed shores of Never, except by something approaching a Oregon. miracle, would there be another slave-State formed by the free will of the people, and no State, except formed by the free will of the people, could ever be admitted without a In the fullness of his joy, and violation of the contract. in the tumult of his gratitude, he sent that dispatch which, while it withdrew his name, unfortunately made Mr. Buchanan President. Despite the civil war and rebellion which had reigned in Kansas, the great measure worked its own way successfully toward the contemplated result; when lo, there came a blow so sudden and unexpected, that no human sagacity could have been prepared to meet it. The Lecompton fraud was taken to the executive bosom, nursed into life;
bound fanaticism
tories
a message was sent to Congress, requesting that, after the manner of royal infants in other lands, this only child of the bachelor President, should be portioned, pensioned, and Had Mr. Buchanan provided for at the national charge. been true to his trust, true to his plighted honor, and true to the solemn oath of office, the issue of disunion would have been tried on the Lecompton question, and rebellion would have been compelled to take up arms in defence of that horrid fraud a fraud covered with blood, and reeking Had with the stenches of the most shocking corruptions.
—
he been true, Mr. Douglas' original design and expectations would have been verified, and the ultraists of the South, and not of the North, would have heaped contumely upon the Nebraska bill and its author. As the corner-stone of this University was laid under an malediction upon the Nebraska bill and its living author, I have thought it not inappropriate, that in burying the illustrious dead beneath its monumental towers, a record of the motive should be placed where posterity may find that and the malediction together. Mr. Douglas was an independent statesman. Looking
STEPIIKN
at all questions
A.
DOUGLAS.
20/
from an immovable stand-point of princihe could neither be coaxed nor driven into an approval ple, To you, fellow-citizens, of what lie deemed to be \vron<^.
in
whose memory the eventful
it
strug<^le of i857-'58
is still
unnecessary to enter into a detail of the wicked and desperate efforts to destroy him, put forth by the relentless old tyrant that fancied he was President, but
fresh,
is
who was a mere puppet in the hands of that junta that since then have openly avowed themselves traitors, even while in office, to the government of which they were His offence was that he would not sworn members. truckle to the South, would not support a fraud, would not overturn popular liberty, and would not falsify every act and speech of his life. Party rule and party lash were threatened; party rule and party lash were applied, but
strong and powerful as were his fealty and obligations to his party, he acknowledged a higher fealty to the peoHe ple, and a stronger obligation to his own conscience. spurned executive smiles when those smiles were invitations to crime, and with giant arm, he struck to the dust the slaves who sought to bind him with chains of executive despotism. Standing almost alone in the Senate House, he met the storm, and sustained the shock unmoved, and never laid down his arms until the foul mon-
dead and prostrate beneath his That contest afforded a fairer exhibition of Mr. Douglas' varied talents than any that had preceded it. But it also conveyed to the heart of ever}- honest man, the No man had ever been conviction that he was sincere. Denounced and proscribed subjected to such an ordeal. by the Democratic administration; excluded, as far as a mean and vengeful cabinet could do so, politically and socially; surrounded by thousands of politicians, from every part of the country, beseeching him not to sacrifice his part)', by dividing it, and not to sacrifice his friends, by having them thrust from office; deserted b)- the entire Democratic press outside of his own State, and abandoned by all those public men upon whose support he had reason to rely; with a watchful enemy in front, anxious for him
ster
feet.
— Lecompton — lay
to trip, or overstep the line of principle, that they might precipitate his ruin, and elect one of their own men in his
208
EARLY
ILLINOIS.
by detectives, to report who and with visitors coming under the guise of confidence and friendship, to hold conversations, which they purposed revealing to his injury; stricken even in the midst of these fearful circumstances, by a painful and disabling illness, it is not too much to say that the mental faculties must have been strong indeed to have passed through that protracted contest without once giving way to doubt or hesitancy. And when, so far as the Senate was concerned, the last vote was to be taken, how that
place; with his house watched
visited him,
mind, operating sympathetically upon his physical nature, enabled him to rise from a bed, where, for days, he had been racked with pain, and in that chamber deliver a speech which has never been surpassed. His power of endurance, both physical and mental, were
truly surprising, commencing as long ago as 1838, when he traversed in his campaign with Mr. Stuart, a region that now has nine congressional districts, down to 1840, and annually to 1852; and then the stormy campaigns of 1854, where opposite every hustings hung his own effigies; and again in 1856, when he traveled, up to the very hour of the
pledging himself that Buchanan was a patriot and of truth. Hardly had he placed that individual in power, before he was called upon to vindicate himself from his agency in the fraud. And then followed the campaign (I use the term by which these affairs are popularly known) of 1858, with its excitements, its personalities, and you will pardon a soldier in that memorable contest, for saying its brilliant results. That election Mr. Douglas never claimed as a personal victory; he did not regard it as a defeat of Mr. Lincoln, but he claimed it as a triumph of the People, in a direct conflict with executive tyranny.
election,
a
man
—
mental endurance was again the Potomac, I may say, he spoke day and night along the Atlantic coast, until he reached the shores of New England; his voice then sounded on his own native hills of Vermont, and the valley of the Connecticut echoed to its clarion notes. Passing westward through New York, he reached Lake Erie, and then by another route returned to the sea-coast. We hear of him awaking the yeomanry of Pennsylvania, and then
In i860, his physical and
fearfully tested.
Commencing on
STEPIIEX
A.
DOUGLAS.
209
is electrifying^ the Van Winkles of Nortli Carolina and lie then turned to the west, and throuij^h Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and his own loved Illinois, he spoke to the gallant hosts that everywhere greeted him, not in the despairing mood of one who knew that all was lost, but in the language of a patriot and brother, finding more consolation in a virtuous defeat than a and national ruin. \'ictory bought with personal shame His words may be said to have been these: "We have stood thus long defending the altars of our country; if we must be overcome by numbers, lot us fall side by side, and
he
be buried with a constitution we can no longer
defend."
successful!}-
He was an Orator such as America has never known. His oratory was not exclusively adapted to any one, or any number of circumstances. Wherever he was, at the
festive table, at the college exhibition, at a public reception, at a meeting of savans, at the village school, before
the court, before a town meeting, in the Senate everywhere, under all circumstances, he was equal to the occasion, and claimed and won the proud title of an Orator.
—
He was always His oratory was peculiar to himself. He never attempted the pedantic; he never sought to dazzle by fanciful imagery; he never employed any but the simplest language. The consequence was that gifted with a strong mind, a complete vocabulary of purest Saxon, and speaking always from an earnest conviction, he addressed himself to the minds of his hearers, and rarely ever failed to reach their hearts and enlist their sympathies. No man owed more to his powers of orator}' than Mr. Douglas, and no man every accomplished more by oratory than he did. In 1834, when he had not been in the State six months, he met, in debate, one of the ablest lawyers and distinguished speakers of that day. He was a beardHis less youth, unknown, small and delicately made. the political leader of his country, at home and opponent among friends and neighbors who took pride in his success. That event is familiarly known. It was but a rc-cnactment of the story of David and Goliath, with this addition that the populace in their enthusiasm bestowed upon the victor the title of the vanc^uished, a term which followed
natural.
him ever
after.
2IO But
in
all
it
EARLY
was
in the
its
ILLINOIS.
force.
Senate that this great power was shown That was the great arena of his glory.
There he stood without a successful rival. In that theatre he bid defiance to all opponents, and in that theatre he gained his most unfading laurels. It was my good fortune, while engaged in another business than that I now follow, to have been a witness of, and to have heard all, the debates in the Senate on the compromises of 1850, and on the celebrated Kansas and Nebraska Act. And what debates they were! As I recall them at this time, when the literature and conversation of the day is altogether of a military and warlike character, that Senate seems to me as one general battle-field, in which every possible engine of war is playing its noisy and * * * destructive
-k-
part.
leave the public servant, and ask your patience while I speak of the man. And after all, there can be no true greatness that has not an honorable heart to support
But
I
His integrity was unquestionable and it. unquestioned. Never, even in the fiercest and most pitiless of all the many storms that broke upon him, was there ever a stain or an imputation upon his personal honor. Clay, with all his greatness, did not escape the calumny of
and maintain
corruption; Webster had enemies mean enough to charge bribery; but high as party and personal malice may reach after their victim, they spared the personal honor of Douglas. He went through nearly thirty years of public life, and no word of suspicion against his integUntil within a few years he had been rity was uttered. poor; for twenty-five, years he held ofiice continually, and
him with
as legislator, judge,
pure, but
unsuspected.
and senator, he had remained not only He never received from ofiice
more than enough to yield him an ordinary support for himself and family. Some years ago he invested a few hundred dollars in real estate. That investment grew in His wealth, and extended until it became magnificent. purchases were in and near Chicago, and if he became His wealth rich, it was because Chicago became rich. increased with the wealth of the City, and as that receded He could never amass so did the value of his possessions. wealth by the regular rules of trade. What he had was
68
STEPHEN
A.
DOIGI.AS.
211
held by him only as trustee for the multitude who called him friend. With hand ever open, with purse-strings never drawn, he dealt out with liberal hand to all who soucfht his aid. He prized riches only as a means of aiding; others, and he gave freely and cordiall}' while a dollar was left. His was no ostentatious liberalit\'. Instead of creditinc^ his own sagacity with the fortune that resulted from his investments, he recognized the disbursement of that fortune for noble purposes, as an additional obligation imposed upon him by Providence. Hence it was that the establishment of the Chicago University, when proposed to him, met, as you (President Burroughs) well know, a prompt
and ready response.
He saw
in
it
a
means by which he
could serve the State, this City, and his fellows-men, for all time to come, and with him Action ahvays followed conviction. The establishment of the University at once became an object, and with the endowment came the practical and the only condition, that the building should at once be commenced. He did not fancy that spirit which hoards through life great masses of wealth, to be administered for good purposes after the owner is gone. He preferred to do good at once, and in seeing others enjoy the benefits of his liberality, found infinitely more happiness than if it had been retained by himself. He took the utmost pride in this University, and those who have supposed his life to have been devoted to the attainment of the Presidency, should know, as his friends do know, that personally, he found as much pleasure in the anticipation of presiding as President of the Regents of this University, and in the active business of all public enterprises, as in presiding at the cabinet councils of the nation. I do not say that he did not aspire to the Presidency of the Republic; but I do say, and say it from personal knowledge, that were it not for the sake of friends, and to gratify their devotion of unlimited zeal, his political ambition would have soucfht no hiijher title than the Leader of the American Senate. He often contrasted the two positions of President and Senator, and took great personal pride in the fact that it had been demonstrated in his own case, that a President, through backed by all the powers of the nation, was not equal to a contest with a single Senator who did his duty to the people.
^\
212
EARLY
is
ILLINOIS.
—
buried within sight of the halls of this University. its shadows reach his tomb, covering it witli the mellow light so appropriate to its solemn silence. As the pilgrim to his tomb shall stand at its side, musing on the memory of the dead, he will turn involuntarily to the west, and gazing upon the noble edifice, will exclaim there stands the monument to the Man which shall live forever; and which each year shall send forth to the country its graduates, all bearing upon their hearts the lesson of Douglas' great example. Yet, this man with the free and bountiful hand, whose whole life was devoted to the service of the people, and upon whose private purse there was a never-ending demand, died poor. From the magnificent domain, which a
He
At evening hour
few years ago he called his own, his family is debarred by the legal claims of others. In the broad State of Illinois, enriched by his labors, developed by his genius, and peopled through his enterprise, there was not ground enough that his children could call their own, in which to deposit
his coflin.
The
faithful
widow,
faithful
even to the
memory
of the
husband bore to Illinois, at the solicitation of the people, gave up all that was left of him, and gave
love which her
too her
own
little
tract of land for his grave.
Let us hope that his life, devoted to the benefit of his His great heart race, may not have been spent in vain. throbbed and pulsated only for the public good, and let us hope that his countrymen now and hereafter may find in his patriotism, integrity, and life an example worthy of
imitation.
He has gone from among us, No more will this City resound
popular rage, or be
filled
but he lives in his fame. with the fierce clamor of
with the pageantry of his triwill his voice be heard on umphal processions. the stump, in the forum, or in the Senate, but the student of history, during all coming time, will search in vain for the record of brighter deeds, of a purer life, of a nobler heart, of an equal eloquence, or for evidences of those indomitable attributes of intellect and manhood, that be-
No more
long
to,
and must
forev^er attach to the
name
of Douglas!
69
From
the Chicaeoto change our form of government, but Lincoln de;
nounced that as x)olitical heresy at all events, if changed all, it must be done in times of peace and not by armed rebellion. There were political philanthropists who clamoied. for the overthrow of slavery, and advocated the dissolution of the Union rather than live in a country under whose governnK^nt slavery was tolerated. But Lincoln was a wiser and better i)hihintr()phist than He would have the Union with slavery or without they. He preferred it without, and his ])r^lVrence preslavery. How incomi)arably worse would have been the vailed.
condition of the slave in the Confederacy with slave for its chief corner-stone, than in the Uiii«
ilie
most
uni<|iu' iKTsonaj^e in
Anu'rican history, and
aftiT
is
ont* of tlu* ,i;n'atesi.
His
rliar-
lull
of salii'nt points.
justil'y,
it
If
time woiihl jK'rmit,
|)roHtal)U' to trace
and
his
its
tlio
life,
occasi;olden
Few j)id)lie men have martyr-^rave. more thorny road tiiou^jh hard, it proved pathway to him adversity was necessary to
; ;
brin^ out
the Jewels in
his character; his sorrows
were
lilessings in disguise, for
they
fitted
him
for his
«;reat luture.
Kiierishable renown and a did not enter upon his threat
duties.
imprepared fur
altlest
its
He had
West
rank with the
mei» of the
;
alieady taken he had had
an experience of thirty years at the bar in a varied praciice; and had held a seat in the State, and Kederal,
legislature.
He
had studied, with profound attention,
the structure of our pivernmeut, and his interpretation was accepted, without (|Ue>tion, by a very huye From a l«H*al proportiiMi of the American people.
-A
leader he became, by force o( cliaracter. ami his wonderful knowledge of, and control over, men, one of the
of greatest political chieftains
modern
times.
Mr. Lincoln saw, in his elevation to the Presidency, but another step toward the hilHllment of the destiny
he believed, at times, awaited him. Few rulers ever had a more difficult part to play when they took office none of his predecessors had problems of equal mo;
ment
to deal with.
He
;
found the country on the very
threshold of revolution.
The government was
threat-
ened with overthrow
and, within sixty days, a civil
The firing war. of gigantic proportions, broke out. on Sumter was the gage of battle thrown down by
the enemy, and the Federal government was not in a of taking it up. position even to consider the propriety The challenge was accepted at once and the new ad:
ministration found itself engaged in a conflict of arms before fairly w^arm in its seat. frecjuently ask our-
We
selves the question,
"could not the war have been
averted?" Great conflicts can always be averted if one party or the other will give up their convictions. There would not have been any American Revolution
had our fathers submitted
English king.
to
the unjust demands of the
,
The
conflict
between
a
human
point,
slavery
and freedom, had reached such
by 1861,
that any other settlement, than by appeal to arms, seemed out of the question. The ordeal of war is al-
ways
est of
terrible, but there are greater evils.
The
dear-
human
rights have been
won
in the carnage of
its
battle,
first
and freedom, in Cimrch and State, received baptism in blood.
conflict the
During the
Union had no warmer
friend
than him whose hand guided the ship of State.
U
82
there were one nmn, :il)ove all others, anxious to preserve the intet^rity nl" tiu' Tnion, and to brinf< it out of the eontiiet unimpaired, that man was Mr. Lincoln.
He
inj;
entered uiM)n the struirjjle wilii the the I'nion at wliatevir eost, and it
intt-nt
is
(»f
sav-
hardly necsuecessfully
essary to remind you,
it
my
comrades,
how
Mistakes, and «;reat ones, were to i)e expected, hut, in the lij?ht of the past, we are astonishecl thcv were so few. Those who stoom
the
human body and
saving the patient.
to us.
A
Slavery had long been a reproach government, founded on the sublime tloetrine
*'all
of the Declaration of !nde|>en*tory that
the advantage over that in being more natural, and better voiiehed for as a matter of imdoubted occurrence.
known
i)oldly
His sense of ju4iee was remarkable. He was never lie to fail to succor the weak and afHicted, an
I
espoused the side of the oppressed regardle-H It is doubtful if the country ever of consequences.
had another public man who so thoroughly hated wrong and injustice. Integrity of character was one
of his
marked
characteristics.
mate
ful
friend, says the
Judge Dtivis, his intiframework of his mental, and
moral, being was honesty.
He
was a man of wonder-
humanity and great depth ot ieeling. On one occasion he attempted to deliver tlie luneral oration over the body of a beloved iriend, but he broke down an!
His stejvmother, who mourned could not proceed. him as one of her own, said, after his death, " Abe was the best )joy I ever saw." One phase of Air.
Lincoln's character is inexpressibly sad, the deep gloom and depression that never left him. He was sometimes the gaye-^t when the saddest, and not infrequently the joke and jest were the onlv silver lining
to the cloud.
He
once said
to a friend, that
it
he appeared
take.
to enjoy life rapturously,
although was a mis-
He
tions of a
poem, entitled
often sought consolation by repeating por" Immortality," by an un-
known autlior, beginning, " Oh why shouUl the .spirit of mortal
!
be proud?"
and he has been known
to turn aside
from wei^jhty
aHJiirs of State to (jimte his favorite stanzas to a visitor.
After a carefnl estimate of the character of Mr. Lincohi,
lish
I
am
justified in repeatinj? the
words of the En>?-
poet, Decker, as applicable to
him
:
—
"
'I'he
best of uien
That
e'er
wore
eartli Hl>uiit
A
him,
soft,
meek, humMe,
patient, tranquil spirit."
We
The
pass, in silence, the tragic
end of Mr. Lincoln.
on that April evening, sent a thrill of horror through the world hardly eipialed since the
fatal shot,
cruel deed on Calvary.
The
night
was driven from the Aztec
Sjmnish history as Noche
capital, has
Hernando Corlez come down in
Triste,
the sad night, and for
like rea.son will the night of
Mr. Lincoln's assassinahistory.
tion be the Noche Tr j.?/e of
If
American
is
"the blood of the martyr
faiij^hl
the seed of the
Church," Die lessons,
Abraham Lincoln, will bf, What an example to him whose
to
by the life an;
tomac, where sleeps the Father of his Country
;
the
other on the great prairies of the West, where lest all that is mortal of Abraham Lincoln, who died
that the
Union might
live.
These Meccas
will
have
their pilgrims while the Republic survives, or history
T
ecounta the deeds of the great.
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